A MORNING VISIT
In an upper room in the Palace of the Litany, fair with all the
burnished devices of the early light, Prince Tabnit paced on that
morning of mornings of his marriage day. Because of his great
happiness the whole world seemed to him like some exquisite intaglio
of which this day was the design.
The room, "walled with soft splendours of Damascus tiles," was laid
with skins of forgotten animals and was hung with historic
tapestries dyed by ancient fingers in the spiral veins of the Murex.
There were frescoes uniting the dream with its actuality, columns
carved with both lines and names of beauty, pilasters decorated with
chain and checker-work and golden nets. A stairway led to a high
shrine where hung the crucified Tyrian sphinx. The room was like a
singing voice summoning one to delights which it described. But
whatever way one looked all the lines neither pointed nor seemed to
have had beginning, but being divorced from source and direction
expressed merely beauty, like an altar "where none cometh to pray."
Prince Tabnit, in his trailing robe of white embroidered by a
thousand needles, looked so akin to the room that one suspected it
of having produced him, Athena-wise, from, say, the great black
shrine. When he paused before the shrine he seemed like a child come
to beseech some last word concerning the Riddle, rather than a man
who believed himself to have mastered all wisdom and to have nailed
the world-sphinx to her cross.
"Surely there is a vein for the silver
And a place for the gold where they fine it.
Iron is taken out of the earth
And brass is moulton out of the stone.
Man setteth an end to darkness
And searcheth out all perfection:
The stones of darkness and of the shadow of death,"
he was repeating softly. "So it is," he added, "'and searcheth to
the farthest bound.' Have I not done so? And do I not triumph?"
Then the youth who had once admitted St. George and his friends to
that far-away house in McDougle Street--with the hokey-pokey man
outside the door--entered with the poetry of deference; and if, as
he bent low, there was a lift and droop of his eyelids which tokened
utter bewilderment, not to say agitation, he was careful that the
prince should not see that.
"Her Highness, the Princess of Yaque, Mrs. Hastings, Mr. Augustus
Frothingham and Miss Frothingham ask audience, your Highness," he
announced clearly.
Prince Tabnit turned swiftly.
"Whom do you say, Matten?" he questioned and when the boy had
repeated the names, meditated briefly. He was at a loss to fathom
what this strange visit might portend; beyond doubt, he reflected
(in a world which was an intaglio of his own designing) it portended
nothing at all. He hastened forward to wait upon them and paused
midway the room, for the highest tribute that a Prince of the Litany
could pay to another was to receive him in this chamber of the
Crucified Sphinx.
"Conduct them here, Matten," he commanded, and took up his station
beside an hundred-branched candlestick made in Curium. There he
stood when, having been led down corridors of ivory and through
shining anterooms, Mrs. Hastings and Olivia and Antoinette appeared
on the threshold of the chamber, followed by Mr. Frothingham. As the
prince hastened forward to meet them with sweepings of his gown
embroidered by a thousand needles and bent above their hands
uttering gracious words, assuredly in all the history of Med and of
the Litany the room of the Crucified Sphinx had never presented a
more peculiar picture.
Into that tranquil atmosphere, dream-pervaded, Mrs. Medora Hastings
swept with all the certainty of an opinion bludgeoning the frail
security of a fact. She had refused to have her belongings sent to
the apartments in the House of the Litany placed that day at her
disposal, preferring to dress for the coronation before she
descended from Mount Khalak. She was therefore in a robe of black
samite, trimmed with the fur of a whole chapter of extinct animals,
and bangles and pendants of jewels bobbed and ticked all about her.
But on her head she wore the bonnet trimmed with a parrot, set, as
usual, frightfully awry. Beside her, with all the timidity of
charming reality in the presence of fantasy, came Olivia and
Antoinette--Olivia in a walking frock of white broadcloth, with an
auto coat of hunting pink, and a cap held down by yards of cloudy
veiling; Antoinette in a blue cloth gown, and about them both--stout
little boots and suede gloves and smart shirt-waists--such an air of
actuality as this chamber, prince and Sphinx and tradition and all,
could not approach. Mr. Augustus Frothingham had struck his usual
incontestable middle-ground by appearing in the blue velvet of a
robe of State, over which he had slipped his light covert top-coat,
and he carried his immaculate top-hat and a silver-headed stick.
"Prince Tabnit," said Mrs. Medora Hastings without ceremony, "what
have they done with that poor young man? Ask him, Olivia," she
besought, sinking down upon a chair of verd antique and extending a
limp, plump hand to the niece who always did everything executive.
Olivia was very pale. She had hardly slept, night-long. Alarm at the
inexplicable disappearance of St. George at dinner-time the day
before and at the discovery that old Malakh was nowhere about had,
by morning, deepened to unreasoning fear among them all. And then
Olivia, knowing nothing of what had taken place in the room of the
tombs, had resolved upon a desperate expedient, had bundled into an
airship her almost prostrate aunt, Mr. Frothingham and his excited
little daughter, and had borne down upon the Palace of the Litany
two hours before noon. Amory, frantic with apprehension, had stayed
behind with Jarvo, certain that St. George could not have left the
mountain. But now that Olivia stood before the prince it required
but a moment to convince her that Prince Tabnit really knew nothing
of St. George's whereabouts. Indeed, since his gift of Phoenician
wine, sealed three thousand years ago, and the immediate evanishment
of the two Americans, his Highness had no longer vexed his thought
with them, and he was genuinely amazed to know that (in a world
which was an intaglio of his own designing) these two had actually
spent yesterday at the king's palace on Mount Khalak. He perceived
that he must give them more definite attention than his half-idle
device of the wine--intended as that had been as a mere hyperspatial
practical joke, not in the least irreconcilable with his office of
host.
"Mr. St. George came to Yaque to help me find my father," Olivia was
concluding earnestly, "and if anything has happened to him, Prince
Tabnit, I alone am responsible."
The prince reflected for a moment, his eyes fixed upon the
hundred-branched candlestick. Then:
"Mr. St. George's disappearance," he said, "has prevented a still
more unpleasant catastrophe."
"Catastrophe!" repeated Mrs. Hastings, quite without tucking in her
voice at the corners, "I have thought of no other word since I got
to be royalty."
"A world experience, a world experience, dear Madame," contributed
Mr. Frothingham, his hands laid trimly along his blue velvet lap.
"But that doesn't make it any easier to bear, no matter what anybody
says," retorted the lady.
"Inasmuch," pursued Prince Tabnit with infinite regret, "as these
Americans have, as you say, assisted in the search for your father,
the king, they have most unfortunately violated that ancient law
which provides that no State or satrapy shall receive aid, whether
of blood or of bond, from an alien. The Royal House alone is
exempt."
"And the penalty," demanded Olivia fearfully. "Is there a penalty?
What is that, Prince Tabnit?"
The voice of the prince was never more mellow.
"Do not be alarmed, I beg," he hastened his reassurance. "Upon the
return of Mr. St. George, he and his friend will simply be set
adrift in a rudderless airship, an offering to the great idea of
space."
Mrs. Hastings swayed toward the prince in her chair of verd antique,
and her voice seemed to become brittle in the air.
"Oh, is that what you call being ahead of the time," she demanded
shrilly, "getting behind science to behave like Nero? And for my
part I don't see anything whatever about the island that is ahead of
the times. You haven't even got silk shoe-laces. I actually had to
use a cloth-of-gold sandal strap to lace my oxfords, and when I lost
a cuff-link I was obliged to make shift with two sides of one of
Queen Agothonike's ear-rings that I found in the museum at the
palace. And that isn't all," went on the lady, wrong kindling wrong,
"what do you do for paper and envelopes? There is not a quire to be
found in Med. They offered me _wireless blanks_--an ultra form that
Mr. Hastings would never have considered in good taste. And how
about visiting cards? I tried to have a plate made, and they showed
me a wireless apparatus for flashing from the doorstep the name of
the visitor--an electrical entrance which Mr. Hastings would have
considered most inelegant. Ahead of the times, with your rudderless
airships! I have always said that the electric chair is a way to be
barbarous and good form at the same time, and that is what I think
about Yaque!"
Mr. Frothingham's hands worked forward convulsively on his blue
velvet knees.
"My dear Madame," he interposed earnestly, "the history of criminal
jurisprudence, not to mention the remarkable essay of the Marquis
Beccaria--proves beyond doubt that the extirpation of the offender
is the only possible safety for the State--"
Olivia rose and stood before the prince, her eyes meeting his.
"You will permit this sentence?" she asked steadily. "As head of the
House of the Litany, you will execute it, Prince Tabnit?"
"Alas!" said the prince humbly, "it is customary on the day of the
coronation to set adrift all offenders. I am the servant of the
State."
"Then, Prince Tabnit, I can not marry you."
At this Mrs. Hastings looked blindly about for support, and Mr.
Frothingham and Antoinette flew to her side. In that moment the lady
had seen herself, prophetically, in black samite and her parrot
bonnet, set adrift in the penitential airship with her rebellious
niece.
For a moment Prince Tabnit hesitated: he looked at Olivia, who was
never more beautiful than as she defied him; then he walked slowly
toward her, with sweep and fall of his garments embroidered by a
thousand needles. Antoinette and her father, ministering to Mrs.
Hastings, heard only the new note that had crept into his voice, a
thrill, a tremour--
"Olivia!" he said.
Her eyes met his in amazement but no fear.
"In a land more alien to me than the sun," said the prince, "I saw
you, and in that moment I loved you. I love you more than the life
beyond life upon which I have laid hold. I brought you to this
island to make you my wife. Do you understand what it is that I
offer you?"
Olivia was silent. She was trembling a little at the sheer enormity
of the moment. Suddenly, Prince Tabnit seemed to her like a name
that she did not know.
"Will you not understand what I mean?" he besought with passionate
earnestness. "Can I make my words mean nothing to you? Do you not
see that it is indeed as I say--that I have grasped the secret of
life within life, beyond life, transcending life, as his
understanding transcends the man? The wonder of the island is but
the alphabet of wisdom. The secrets of life and death and being
itself are in my grasp. The hidden things that come near to you in
beauty, in dream, in inspiration are mine and my people's. All
these I can make yours--I offer you life of a fullness such as the
people of the world do not dream. I will love you as the gods love,
and as the gods we will live and love--it may be for ever. Nothing
of high wisdom shall be unrevealed to us. We shall be what the world
will be when it nears the close of time. Come to me--trust me--be
beside me in all the wonder that I know. But above all, love me, for
I love you more than life, and wisdom, and mystery!"
Olivia understood, and she believed. The mystery of life had always
been more real to her than its commonplaces, and all her years she
had gone half-expecting to meet some one, unheralded, to whom all
things would be clear, and who should make her know by some secret
sign that this was so, and should share with her. She had no doubt
whatever that Prince Tabnit spoke the truth--just as the daughter of
the river-god Inachus knew perfectly that she was being wooed by a
voice from the air. Indeed, the world over, lovers promise each
other infinite things, and are infinitely believed.
"I do understand you, Prince Tabnit," Olivia said simply, "I do
understand something of what you offer me. I think that these things
were not meant to be hidden from men always, so I can even believe
that you have all that you say. But--there is something more."
Olivia paused--and swiftly, as if some little listening spirit had
released the picture from the air, came the memory of that night
when she had stood with St. George on that airy rampart beside the
wall of blossoming vines.
"There is something more," she repeated, "when two love each other
very much I think that they have everything that you have said, and
more."
He looked at her in silence. The stained light from some high window
caught her veil in meshes of rose and violet--fairy colours,
witnessing the elusive, fairy, invincible truth of what she said.
"You mean that you do not love me?" said the prince gently.
"I do not love you, your Highness," said Olivia, "and as for the
wisdom of which you speak, that is worse than useless to you if you
can do as you say with two quite innocent men." She hesitated,
searching his face. "Is there no way," she said, "that I, the
daughter of your king, can save them? I will appeal to the people!"
The prince met her eyes steadily, adoringly.
"It would avail nothing," he said, "they are at one with the law.
Yet there is a way that I can help you. If Mr. St. George returns,
as he must, he and his friends shall be set adrift with due
ceremony--but in an imperial airship, with a man secretly in
control. By night they can escape to their yacht. This I will
do--upon one condition."
"Oh--what is that?" she asked, and for all the reticence of her
eagerness, her voice was a betrayal.
Prince Tabnit turned to the window. Below, in the palace grounds,
and without, in the Eurychôrus, a thousand people awaited the
opening of the palace doors. They filled the majestic avenue, poured
up the shadowed alleys that taught the necessity of mystery, were
grouped beneath the honey-sweet trees; and above their heads, from
every dome and column in the fair city, flowed and streamed the
joyous, wizard, nameless colours of the pennons blown heavenward
against the blue. They were come, this strange, wise, elusive
people, to her marriage.
The prince was smiling as he met her eyes; for the world was always
the exquisite intaglio, and to-day was its design.
"They know," he said simply, "what was to have been at noon to-day.
Do you not understand my condition?"