Theologians are fond of speculative subjects; but I do not remember
that any of them have discussed the feelings of Noah and his family
when shut up in the ark. What did they talk about when they came
together in the evening after feeding the various animals? No doubt
they congratulated each other on their escape. No doubt they grumbled
occasionally at the limited accommodation of the ark. But were they
interested in what was going on outside? Did they guess at the depth
of the flood, calculate whether this or that town were submerged,
discuss the fate of neighbours and friends, wonder what steps the
Government was taking to meet the crisis? They had very little chance
of getting accurate information. The ark had only one window, and, if
we can trust the artists who illustrate our Bibles, it was a kind of
skylight.
The refugees on Salissa--if refugees is the proper word--were in one
respect worse off than Noah's family. They had no skylight. The
wireless message sent to the Megalian admiral told them that the Great
Powers were at war. After that they got no news at all for more than
two months. The windows, not this time of heaven, but of hell, were
opened. The fountains of the great deep of human ambition, greed and
passion were broken up. Lands where men, unguessing, had bought and
sold, married and been given in marriage, were submerged, swamped,
desolated. Salissa was a good ark, roomier than Noah's, and with this
advantage, that it stayed still instead of tossing about. But not even
Noah was so utterly cut off from all news of the catastrophe outside.
During August and September almost anything might have happened.
Germans might have ridden through the streets of Paris and London.
Russians might have placed their Czar on the throne of the Hapsburgs
in Vienna. The English Fleet might have laid Hamburg in ruins and
anchored in the Kiel Canal. Men might have died in millions.
Civilization itself might have been swept away. But the face of the
sun, rising on Salissa day by day, was in no way darkened by horror,
or crimsoned with shame. The sea whispered round the island shores,
but brought no news of the rushings to and fro of hostile fleets. The
winds blew over battle-fields, but they reached Salissa fresh and
salt-laden, untainted by the odour of carnage or the choking fumes of
cannon firing.
Donovan was probably the only one of the party in the palace who was
entirely satisfied with this position. With the help of Smith he had
demonstrated the efficacy of pacifist methods, and saved the island
from bombardment. In less than a week he removed, to his own
satisfaction, the scandal of Konrad Karl's relations with Madame
Ypsilante. Then he handed the reins of government to the Queen again
and settled down to the business of avoiding exertion and soothing the
disorder of his heart.
To Donovan it always seemed a perfectly natural and simple thing that
Konrad Karl should marry Madame Ypsilante. But it turned out to be
rather difficult to arrange the matter. Madame herself had no
particular objection to being married. She was lukewarm and
indifferent until she found out that the Queen was looking forward to
the wedding as a beautiful finish to a great romance. Madame had a
grateful soul and was willing to do much to please the Queen who
nursed her and was kind to her while she lay in bed exhausted by her
journey. Her contempt for the American miss vanished, as soon as she
understood that neither her pearls nor Konrad Karl were to be taken
from her. Besides, there is always pleasure to be got out of preparing
for a wedding. It was impossible, indeed, to buy clothes on Salissa.
But it was not impossible to accept presents from the Queen's ample
wardrobe. A great deal of interesting fitting and altering was done,
and in the end Madame had an ample trousseau. The Queen, with the help
of Smith, made an immense and splendid wedding cake.
It was Konrad Karl who created difficulties. He said--and Donovan
believed him--that he was personally quite willing to marry Madame
Ypsilante. He desired to marry her. She was the only woman in the
world whom he would marry of his own free will. But he remained
incurably terrified of the Emperor. Donovan talked to him about the
rights of free citizens. He said that the humblest man had power to
choose his wife. Nothing he said had the slightest influence on Konrad
Karl.
"But," the King used to reply, "you do not understand. I am a king."
"Well," said Donovan, "according to my notions that's the same thing,
only more so."
"Ah, no," said the King. "Ah, damn it, no. A king is not bourgeois,
what you call citizen. That is the point. It is because I am a king
that the Emperor interferes. If I were a citizen, but----"
He shrugged his shoulders helplessly.
Gorman tried him along a different line.
"Look here," he said, "the Emperor has got himself into a nasty mess.
He's in for a big war. He can't possibly have any time to spare to
worry over who you marry."
"To-day, no," said the King, "but to-morrow the Emperor wins the war,
and then----"
"I wouldn't be too cocksure of his winning," said Gorman.
"It is surer than any cock," said the King. "It was settled long ago.
I do not understand _Real Politik_, but I know that much. The Emperor
wins the war. Then he says to me: 'Konrad, you married her. Good. You
are in a fortress for life.' And I am. You do not understand the
Emperor, my friend."
"I'm beginning to," said Gorman.
It was Smith who talked over Konrad Karl in the end. I am sure that
Donovan would not have approved of his argument. I doubt whether
Gorman would have cared to use it. Smith said frankly that a marriage
performed by Stephanos the Elder would be no marriage at all outside
the Island of Salissa and could be repudiated at any time without the
slightest inconvenience.
"You think," said the King, "that I wish to desert Corinne. But
never."
"Beg pardon, your Majesty," said Smith. "That wasn't the idea in my
mind. What I was thinking of, your Majesty, was the way the matter
might be represented to the Emperor."
The King saw the point. On the whole he seems to have been pleased
when his last difficulty was removed and he was actually able to marry
his beloved Corinne.
I do not think they were very happy afterwards. They were, no doubt,
well enough suited to each other. But neither of them was suited to a
life on Salissa. Monotony preyed on them. They both suffered from a
kind of homesickness, an aching hunger for streets, theatres, shops,
the rattle of traffic, the glitter of city life at night. They would
have been good friends if they had been able to live their proper
lives. Even on Salissa King Konrad Karl remained a lover. But they
bickered a great deal and sometimes openly quarrelled. Then Madame
would retire to her room and sulk for hours or whole days, while the
King wandered about the palace and bewailed the cruelty of Corinne.
Gorman too, in his own way, suffered from homesickness and had fits of
irritation. He had lived his life in the centre of events, not great
events, but such things as intrigues at Westminster, changes of
Governments, and amendments, in committees, of Acts of Parliament. He
had always known what was going on in the world. He found himself
hopelessly shut off from all news of the greatest happenings of his
time. He wanted desperately to know what England was doing, whether
the French had risen to the occasion. He wanted, above all, to know
about Ireland. Was Ireland in the throes of a civil war, or were her
children taking their places in the ranks of the Allied Armies? Gorman
was unreasonably annoyed by King Konrad Karl's certainty that the
Emperor would win the war and by Donovan's passive neutrality of
sentiment. For Gorman neutrality in any quarrel was no doubt
inconceivable. As a younger man he might have been a rebel and given
his life in some wild struggle against the power of England; or he
might have held the King's commission and led other Irishmen against a
foreign foe. He could never, if a great fight were going on, have been
content to stand aside as Donovan did; neither praising nor blaming,
neither hoping for victory nor fearing defeat.
Even more difficult to bear was Konrad Karl's conviction that the
Emperor was invincible. It does not appear that the King had any
particular wish for a German victory. He would perhaps have preferred
to see the Emperor beaten and humiliated. But that seemed to him
outside all possibility. The Emperor's triumph was as inevitable as
the changing of the seasons. A man may not wish for winter or the east
winds of spring; but he does not soothe himself with hopes that the
long days of summer will continue. It seemed to Konrad Karl merely
foolish that Gorman should speak as if the issue of the war were in
any doubt.
Gorman has often spoken to me about his feelings at this time.
"I could have broken Konrad Karl's head with pleasure," he said once.
"I had to hold myself tight if I did not mean to fall on him. He was
so infernally certain that the Emperor would wipe the floor with us.
Us! Isn't it a queer thing now? Here I am, a man who has been abusing
the English all my life, and hating them--I give you my word that I've
always hated the self-sufficiency and nauseating hypocrisy of the
English. There's nothing I've wanted more than to see them damned well
thrashed by somebody. And yet the minute anybody comes along to thrash
them I'm up on my hind legs, furious, talking about 'Us' and 'We' and
'Our' army just as if I were an Englishman myself."
Gorman made every effort in his power to get news of some sort. He
tried to bribe the island fishermen to sail over to the mainland in
their largest boat. He offered to go with them. It was a voyage which
they sometimes made. In fine weather there was no great difficulty
about it. But Gorman's bribes were offered in vain. A curious fear
possessed the islanders; the same fear which laid hold of the souls of
simple people all over Europe at that time. They were afraid of some
vast evil, undefined, unrealized, and their terror kept them close to
the shadows of their homes. The most that Gorman could persuade them
to do was to take him a few miles out to sea in one of their boats.
There he used to stay for an hour or so, for so long as the men with
him would consent to remain, going out as often as they would go with
him. His hope was that he might see some ship, hail her, and get news
from her crew. But no steamer, no fishing boat even, came in sight.
Of all the people on the island, Gorman was the most to be pitied
except perhaps the Queen.
For awhile she was happy enough. The wedding interested and excited
her. The presence of guests in the palace gave her much to think about
and do. She was busy with her school. She still found pleasure in
roaming over the island with Kalliope, but there came a time when she
began to expect the arrival of the _Ida_. She knew how long the voyage
to England took. She made calculations of the time required for
loading the steamer with her new cargo. She fixed a day, the earliest
possible, on which the _Ida_ might reach Salissa again. That day
passed, and many after it. The _Ida_ was overdue, long overdue.
The Queen used to ask questions of every one, seeking comfort and
assurance. She got little. Konrad Karl's conviction that the Emperor
must be victorious was not cheering. Gorman supposed that the _Ida_
might have been taken over by the Admiralty, or might have been
forbidden to sail, or that Captain Wilson might be unwilling to take
risks if enemy cruisers were at large on the high seas. Smith coolly
discussed the possibility of a blockade of the English coasts by
German submarines. Kalliope was the Queen's only comforter. She had no
theories about war or politics, but she had a profound conviction of
the certainty of lovers meeting.
"He will come once more," she said, "sure thing."
That was the Queen's conviction too. But it was weary work waiting.
There is a nook, a little hollow, high up on one of the western cliffs
of the island where it is possible to sit, sheltered among tall ferns,
and gaze out across the sea. There came a time towards the end of
September, when the Queen used to climb up there every morning and sit
for hours watching for the _Ida_. Kalliope went with her. They erected
a little flagstaff. They carried up the blue banner of Salissa. It was
the Queen's plan to signal a welcome to her lover when she saw his
ship. Above the nook in which they sat the two girls laid a beacon
fire, a great pile of dry wood, dragged up the cliff with immense
toil. The Queen thought of leaping flames and a tall column of smoke
which should catch her lover's eyes and tell him that she was waiting
for him. But day after day the calm sea lay shining, vacant. Evening
after evening the Queen came sadly home again, a cold fear in her
heart, bitter disappointment choking her. Then Kalliope would do her
best for her mistress, repeating over and over her comforting phrases.
"He will come once more. Sure thing. Damned sure."