THE OLD LOVE AND THE NEW
No words can adequately describe the emotions that prevailed in the
great city when the news flew from mouth to mouth of the assassination
of the King, followed by the almost immediate death of the murderer.
Many scores of households were already bewailing their dead and making
the usual elaborate preparations to honour their remains. And now the
palace itself was drowned in lamentation also, and was face to face in
addition with the problem of the succession.
The latter point was very quickly settled. Fifty years had to pass
before the nobility would have the right to raise one of their
own order to the throne. Melanitis instantly wrote out a form of
renunciation with her own hand, and placed herself entirely in
Mexitli’s power. The latter took her aside, and said, in the presence
of Radcliffe and of Abercromby--
“Since you have so honourably kept your faith to me which you pledged
two years ago, my first act as Queen shall be to associate you with me
in the sovereignty.”
“That I am firmly resolved to refuse,” she answered. “I pray that
your cousin Mayana be raised to the first place below the throne. Also
that Clarence may be retained in the rank of nobility along with his
comrades. All I ask for myself and for him further is, that you will
permit us to live in some retired spot where it will be easy for us to
devote ourselves to the work we desire to do.”
“You shall rule the island of Melandria for me, as Andron’s term of
office expires with my father’s death. You will not disappoint me in
this, will you, Melanitis?”
“You are more than good to me,” she answered, “and if you desire it, I
will undertake this work.”
“Now that I understand everything,” Mayana interposed, taking the hand
of Melanitis, “I honour you as I never honoured you before, and I
sympathise with you in those awful years of trial amongst us which you
have so bravely spent.”
“And you, Clarence,” said the Queen, “though you can have no direct
power in the ruling of this land, will find your happiness in the love
of your wife, in the fulfilment of your mission, and in the knowledge
of the love which we all bear to you, for you are devoting your life
to the good of your adopted country. You also, Abercromby, will have
your share in that love, a share which will increase, as we see that
you completely identify yourself with us. As for the other two, it is
_their_ fault if their share in our hearts’ affections be much less. To
their own world they have decided to return, and it is doubtless well,
for to it they evidently belong. I shall have a serious talk with them
when the fitting time arrives. Meanwhile, you will all remain in the
palace with us.”
Melanitis and Clarence spent most of that day together. Their happiness
was too great to be expressed in words. They sat in one of the recesses
of the palace gardens looking towards the south, and each told the
other what they had suffered in the long time of separation.
“We will talk always in the dear English tongue, Clarence, when we are
together. Atalantan has been to me a painfully acquired dialect. I do
not speak it very much better than you.”
“When did you first hear of our coming, dearest?”
“I was standing on the palace terrace, and I saw the rockets soar
into the sky. I knew it was something most unusual, and I myself
urged Mayana and Cleophon (who were then visiting the palace) to go
and investigate. The moment they brought back the report of their
interview, I was certain, but,” she said with a shudder, “you were all
of you close to death.”
“I felt sure of it at the time, dearest.”
“Mayana has often told me since that she can never bear to think about
it. But is it possible that no suspicion of the truth about me ever
reached you from any one?”
“Never, Melanitis.”
“You _must_ drop that detestable name. I am Lilian. But how _did_ you
explain to yourself what Abercromby could have meant?”
“By the pure miraculous power of God raising you from the dead.”
“Ah! Well, of course, that would account. And yet it was something not
far short of it.”
Then she asked Clarence to tell her all about his work after he had
returned to Oxford, and all about the Professor and his companions.
“The most trying part of it to me was when you and your people talked
away in my presence, not knowing that I could understand you. Little
did you know how much I agreed with many outspoken criticisms, though
they were sometimes not very politely expressed. But that song about
the proctor, and your Atalantising of it, nearly did for me altogether,
and then--Tom’s letter!”
“There is one thing I greatly desire to ask you. Was it true, as
Parmenton asserted, that you in any way supported them in their designs
upon the existing social order? He actually advised me to throw in my
lot with you, and said that you were a Karamandran woman at heart.
Could it have possibly been that he suspected the truth?”
“Quite impossible. He only took advantage of some words which he once
heard me say in the presence of Lydon, that I did not greatly admire
the way in which the women ruled everything here. But, of course, I
have the right of my sex to change my mind upon this or any other
subject. Certainly, now that _you_ have come, I must break altogether
with any such ideas.”
“I never ruled you in the other world,” chuckled he, “so I am scarcely
likely ever to attempt doing it in this.”
“Perhaps you never went the right way to work. You were sadly wanting
in tact; but you have made amends here, at all events, when you saved
yourself and the others from an almost certain death on the day of the
trial.”
“What will be done with Medon and Parmenton?”
“Don’t ask me, Clarence. They will drop out. There will be no trial.
Better would it be for them if I served them as I did Mauro Katakalon.
You know that I saved the wretch Lydon himself, and how he requited it.”
Radcliffe shuddered. “I do not like these things.”
“Nor do I, though I cannot now see _everything_ through terrestrial
spectacles.”
“Did you know that Lydon was going to betray your secret?”
“Not till the last moment. You and Frank were very wise in urging a
private trial.”
“I only did it because I fell in with his opinion; I did not know what
was going to happen. But I am troubled about another matter. Can Clieto
and Arniphon be depended on not to tell Lydon’s story broadcast?”
“I shall leave that with the Queen; she will do what she thinks best
for us. Do not be hard upon Mexitli or Mayana, or any others. There is
much that ought to be corrected, but we must give them the fuller form
of their own ancient faith, and that will work a change in many things.”
“What was your feeling towards the King?”
“Grief and regret. But I was quite powerless to act; it would have
killed him to have learned the truth from _me_, even if he had believed
it. Mexitli must have bitterly hated the true Melanitis; but she
gradually awoke to the fact that, whatever change had passed over me,
it was sufficient to render me her passive instrument, and not her
rival. Little by little her enmity turned to affection, and then when
you came, though I had certain risks to run, I felt that I might some
day tell her everything. On that night when you sang ‘Solitude,’ I
betrayed myself so openly that Abercromby, who had already suspected
the truth--for I knew he did by many little things--came to me and
taxed me directly with it. Then I told Mexitli and Mayana. The Queen
believed it; her cousin did not. Of course, the Queen saw in a moment
that her succession to the throne was secured beyond hesitation; and so
we all made a firm alliance, and I myself told Abercromby to pave the
way towards your enlightenment. Now I think I have told you everything.”
“What effect has your experience had upon the truth of the theory of
re-incarnation?”
“Don’t trouble your dear head about that. One instance does not make
a rule, especially when we can see, as here, such evident meaning
and reason for it. It had not to do with the earth, but with Venus.
I was not reborn, but conscious from the first of what had happened.
Better, in one sense, had I not been, for no one knows, nor ever will
know, but I who have gone through it, what it has cost me to be such
an incarnated impostor. My journeys to Aptaura, etc., were not much
dictated by love of astronomy, nor even for the sake of seeing the
‘Little Queen of the Night,’ about which there was not much to learn
from those wise men, or from their instruments, but chiefly to get
away from people and talk English to myself, lest I should forget it
entirely by the time you came.”
“Was the real Melanitis older or younger than you when your change
came.”
“Older by some years, Clarence, but not very many.”
“God help me,” said Radcliffe; “I hoped that it had been otherwise. I
had hoped I might have had you a few years longer.”
“You will have me as long as God wills, my dearest. We cannot tell
beforehand any of these things; we have a work to do, and we shall be
immortal till it is done.”
“And afterwards,” he said.
“Yes, afterwards, in the Mansions of the Blest. You were very fond of
that expression; it is curious that you pitched upon the favourite
phrase of Venus--‘Antillie--intânie.’”
That evening the Professor and Carysfort had a long conversation over
the things which the lovers had been discussing, though in a different
form.
“I perfectly believe all I have heard, Carysfort,” he said; “I do not
trouble over a magical key, if it perfectly fits a magical lock.”
“Then you go in for stark miracles and supernaturalism, Carmichael,”
said the engineer.
“No, my friend, I, in this case, go in for unknown law, unknown
factors, unknown powers. Whether they are miraculous or not, requires
me to know vastly more about them than I am likely to, on this side of
the border. It is much more important to know whether a fact is true,
than to know whether it is supernatural. I know _this_ is true, for it
clears up everything that has puzzled us from the first; on just the
same principle, I accept the resurrection of Christ, because I cannot
account for what happened afterwards except on such a ground.”
In the meantime, the King’s last wish that a search should be made for
poor Tom had been carried out. He was searched for all over the city
and the district, but no trace of him could anywhere be discovered.
Meanwhile the agitation in Atalanta continued to increase, and at last
a party of loyalists, more ardent than discreet, landed on the island
from an airship, and proclaimed the Queen from the terraces of the
Temple.
They had found no one there, but Mexitli was not satisfied. She blamed
them for going without a sufficient force, but she promised that, as
soon as the King’s embalming had been completed, and that of the other
illustrious dead, the Temple should be thoroughly overhauled and taken
possession of in her name.
Abercromby ventured to ask the Queen as to what ceremonies would be
performed at her coronation. She did not quite understand him, and
accordingly he and Radcliffe gave her an account of the coronation of
Queen Victoria and the ceremonies in Westminster Abbey. Her answer was
that that lady was only a queen of one small country, and doubtless had
many enemies who needed to be convinced that she was a true monarch;
but that when a sovereign governed an entire world, it only led to
gossip and cavilling to have any ceremonies at all.
“I put a star in my coronet,” she said, “and simply issue my orders,
and that is all that is needed. Everybody understands; to disobey is to
die. Medon and Parmenton have just found this out.”
Two days later, Abercromby said to Radcliffe: “Where in the world are
Cleito and Arniphon? I have missed them entirely. Have you a guess on
the subject?”
“Perhaps I have,” said Radcliffe. “Cleophon is installed in the one
post, and Andron, when he comes from Melandria, is to have the other
appointment. But it beats me entirely where the others are.”
Radcliffe happened to mention this to the Professor, who said shortly,
“They are going to the earth with us in order to tell our terrestrial
people what has happened to Mrs. Radcliffe.”
“Are you joking, or is this really serious, Professor?”
“Really serious for them, and an abominable nuisance for us.”
“Have you to take them in the Asteroid?”
“Yes; I suppose it will be like the Indians whom Columbus took back
with him to Spain, an advantage to prove that we are not impostors.”
“But who the deuce contrived it?” asked Abercromby, “and what does it
mean?”
“Well, they were determined to tell their story on Venus, and Mexitli
thought it would make less commotion if they told it on the earth.”
“Where are they now?”
“In gaol, poor beggars,” said Carysfort, “stewing in their own juice.”
Abercromby burst out into a roar of laughter. “Well done, Mexitli!
Catch a woman asleep indeed! I’m precious glad for Radcliffe’s sake and
Lilian’s. Now their coast will be clear. Is not the Queen a duck?”
“She is a beast,” retorted Carmichael. “Why should she cast her rascals
on us?”