Prince Carlo was seated at a small, round, mahogany table in the centre
of his shadow-haunted room. Before him lay a not uninviting repast. Cold
meat, cut-up peaches, bread, butter, iced coffee, and a dish containing
a kind of pickle known only to Rexanians strove in vain to tempt his
appetite. Rukacs had spread the table silently, but with an air of
deference that was grateful to the captive prince. No word had been
spoken between them, but in his very silence Rukacs seemed to do homage
to the youth’s rank, a rank that the conspirator recognized in practice
while in theory he denied its existence.
Evolution has not yet placed man so far above the lower order of animals
that he does not in his heart of hearts acknowledge the tendency of
nature to ratify the monarchical idea. He finds beneath him in the
scale of being the bees setting up a queen and the herds of wild
cattle paying homage to a king bull. He discovers that the prevailing
conception of a future world, even among democrats, pictures God upon
His throne, surrounded by celestial courtiers. Whether he looks up or
down, therefore, man’s eye rests upon the concrete manifestations of the
abstract idea of royalty, and, sweeping the whole range of existence, he
sees a throne beneath his feet and dreams of another somewhere beyond
the stars. The old cry, “_Le roi est mort, vive le roi_,” may have in it
the germs of universal truth that a nation of freemen would do well to
heed. The substitution of a political “boss” for an hereditary ruler may
be a step forward, but there are those to whom it looks like reaction
illustrating the very nature of things.
Prince Carlo of Rexania sipped his coffee and pondered certain questions
related to the propositions just laid down. Whatever of weakness there
had been in the voluptuous dreams that had tempted him from the stern
path of duty in the afternoon had disappeared, and his mind now dwelt
wholly upon the obligations he owed to his people, his forefathers, and
himself. As the thought of his physical helplessness at that moment
stung him into a gesture of angry impatience, Rukacs crossed the room
and closed the window that looked out upon the balcony, the window that
Prince Carlo had vainly attempted to open on the night of his arrival.
Rukacs understood the secret of its fastenings, and silently, almost
stealthily, took an unnecessary precaution against his captive’s escape.
The manner in which the Rexanian performed this task proved that he was,
at bottom, ashamed of the _rôle_ he was playing at the moment.
“If you desire anything, your—your royal highness,” he faltered, as he
recrossed the room and placed a hand upon the door opening into the hall,
“will you kindly rap three times upon the floor?” The conspirator’s
flushed face bore outward evidence of his interior agitation. Rukacs
loved freedom too well to make a graceful jailer.
Prince Carlo bowed in acknowledgment of his captor’s words, and on the
instant found himself alone, the grating sound of a rusty key again
serving to emphasize the chilling fact that he, the heir-apparent to the
throne of Rexania, was a prisoner in a land whose political stock in
trade is liberty.
There was something oppressive in the sudden silence. Prince Carlo
glanced furtively around the room. He had become used to the depressing
characteristics of the apartment, and the antic shadows that lurked in
the far corners and hovered around the curtains of the bed no longer
affected his nerves. But at this moment the uncanny spirit of the old
house seemed to whisper to him in threatening tones. His overwrought
fancy pictured the stealthy assassin creeping through the damp corridors
and dodging behind crumbling curtains in his search for blood. A door
creaked on its hinges in some distant corner of the house; he started as
though the sound carried with it a menace he must heed.
Presently the reaction came, and a smile of self-pity played about his
clean-cut mouth. With an impatient gesture, he brushed his damp hair back
from his brow and poured some of the iced coffee into a glass. He was
about to raise the draught to his lips, when the conviction seized him
that somebody’s eyes were resting upon him. A shiver went through his
frame, and he replaced the goblet upon the table with trembling hand.
Courageous though Prince Carlo was by nature, there was a weird, uncanny
influence at work, as it seemed to him, to disturb the balance of his
nervous system.
Annoyed at himself, the youth arose from the table, and, resting one hand
upon the coverlet, glanced toward the window. On the instant his eyes met
the burning gaze of Ludovics, who crouched outside the window, enraged
to find it locked. For a moment neither the prince nor the madman moved.
Then, with one bound, the latter smashed his way through the glass, and
cut and bleeding, a ghastly, crimson incarnation of all that is hideous
in the cult of the assassin, he faced Prince Carlo across the table,
while the lamp flickered threateningly as the night breeze swept through
the window into the room.
The two men stood motionless, gazing into each other’s eyes. The
blood-stained madman, representative of all that is most horrible in the
effort of man to escape from the tyranny of tradition and to seek higher
things, faced the incarnation of reaction, the embodiment of obsolete
prerogatives and time-dishonored claims. The man who was in the right was
mad; he who was in the wrong was sane. Thus did they represent, as they
stood facing each other in the dim light of that wind-beset chamber, ages
of human history.
The glare in Ludovics’ eyes faded slowly as he looked upon the pale,
strong, beautiful face of the youth who had assumed in his wild fancy the
figure of a tyrant who held wild revelry at the expense of the people
in a palace here at hand. What gleam of reason returned to his crazy
mind, who shall say? There was no bacchanalian carnival surrounding the
prince; only a simple supper, untasted, spread before him. He was not
mocking Ludovics, but only looking at him with sad, splendid eyes that
stirred the distraught soul of the madman to its depths. Beneath their
gaze Ludovics seemed to collapse and slink away. He turned, with a low
cry, that echoed through the room like the wail of a spirit damned, and
stumbled towards the window.
Prince Carlo stood motionless at the table, watching the retreating form
of the madman. Suddenly Ludovics drew himself erect and turned again
to face the prince. Raising his pistol slowly until the muzzle rested
against his forehead, Ludovics said, in voice so calm that it seemed to
come from a man whose mind was absolutely normal:
“Your majesty, I salute you. Accept my homage.”
On the instant he pulled the trigger and sent a bullet crashing through
his crazy brain.