A Son of the Immortals, Louis Tracy [mobi ebook reader txt] 📗

train for Paris. She was accompanied by Felix Poluski, and the only reason for this clandestine journey is contained in a few lines of farewell addressed to me by the lady herself. In that letter she speaks of a barrier that renders impossible a marriage between her and me. I want to know what that barrier is and who erected it, and I shall discover both those things here and now, if I have to tear the knowledge from the heart of each man present!"

"A strange threat, Alec," panted Prince Michael, whose prominent eyes were bulging in semi-intoxication, though indeed he seemed suddenly to have realized the tremendous import of the King's statement,—"a strange threat to be uttered before your mother!"

"My mother loved Joan," came the impassioned cry. "She took her to her heart from the first hour, and she will bear with me now in my agony. Yet it may be that even my mother has deceived me. I cannot tell. Some of you here know, perhaps all; but I vow to Heaven I shall not flinch from my resolve to extract the truth, no matter with whom the responsibility rests!"

Princess Delgrado, trembling and ghastly pale, tottered to the chair again and gripped its back to prevent herself from falling. Under less strained conditions, it must have seemed bizarre in a company of men for whom polite attentions to the opposite sex were a fixed convention, that she should seek such support when her husband was standing by her side; but in that startled gathering small heed was given to aught else than the King's thrilling statement.

Though aware of his mother's distress, Alec did not move from the position he had taken up, facing all of them, and with that hidden sword within easy reach. Ever a dutiful and devoted son, he continued now to glower at the half-fainting woman as though she alone held the key of the mystery that resulted in Joan's disappearance. His impassioned eyes sought to peer into her very soul, and his nostrils quivered with the frenzied eagerness of one who awaited an answer to the implied question. In some indefinable way he had already begun to suspect the truth; for when the poor woman made no reply, though more than once her terror laden eyes met his in mute appeal, he whirled round on Marulitch.

"Perhaps this is an occasion when it is a woman's privilege to remain silent," he said bitterly. "So I begin with you, Julius. Save myself, you are the youngest here, and it would be fitting that you and I should determine this business. I warn you there will be no half measures! My life, at least, goes into the scale, and I care not who else adjusts the balance."

The pink and white tints had long fled from the Parisian dandy's complexion. In the dim light he looked livid, and his forehead bore bright beads of perspiration. But even Alec's fiery eyes discerned that he was not only afraid, but bewildered, and his voice cracked with excitement when he spoke.

"I declare by everything I hold sacred that I had no hand in this affair!" he said shrilly. "It is natural perhaps that you should suspect me, since I seem to have most to gain by any ill that befalls you; but, even in your anger, Alec, you should be just. No matter how fierce your emotions, you ought to realize that Miss Vernon's departure from Delgratz retards rather than helps any possible scheming on my part to succeed you on the throne."

"Now you, Beliani!" said Alec, striving to penetrate the mask that covered the one impassive face in the room. "It was you who contrived that my promised wife should come here from Paris. I can see your purpose now. At to-day's meeting of the Cabinet, while I was urging your advancement to power and dignity in the State, your hand was revealed in the opposition manifested to my marriage. Your cunning brain conceived the notion that I would not abandon the woman I loved for the sake of fifty Kingdoms. You read my mind aright; but, if it was you who brought about her flight, for what devilish reason did you depart from the subtle plot that might well have achieved your ends by means which you, at least, would consider fair?"

The Greek spread wide his hands in that characteristic gesture of his. As it happened, for once in his life he could afford to be sincere. "I can only assure your Majesty in the plainest possible terms," he said, "that until I heard the news from your own lips, I had no knowledge whatsoever of Miss Vernon's journey. Were I asked outside that locked door to state to the best of my belief where she might be found, I should have said that the slight illness of which she complained this morning had probably confined her to her room."

For an instant Alec scowled at the President; but Sergius Nesimir's vacuous features so obviously revealed his condition of speechless surprise and distress that there remained only Stampoff, Prince Michael—and his mother.

Adhering rigidly to his scheme of narrowing the field of inquiry by putting the same straight question to each individual in turn, Alec next appealed to the man who had helped him to gain a throne.

"Paul," he said, "you who were my friend and have become my enemy, you, at least, will speak the truth. Tell me, then, who has done this thing!"

Stampoff strode forward. He feared no one, this determined advocate of his country's cause, and he alone knew the real menace of the impending tornado. "Your mother ought not to be here, Alec," he muttered. "A little more of this and she will faint. Look at her! Have you no pity in your heart? This is no place for a woman. Unlock the door and let her be taken away!"

Alec moistened his dry lips with his tongue. He felt that he was finally touching sure ground in the morass through which he was floundering. "She and all of you must remain!" was his grim reply. "Answer my question! Was it you who drove Joan from Delgratz?"

"I counseled it," said Stampoff, folding his arms defiantly, and apparently careless whether or not the King sprang at his throat the next instant.

"Ah! At last! Thank God for one man who is honest, though he seems to have acted like a fiend! To whom did you counsel it? To Joan herself?"

"No."

"Tell me, then, to whom?"

"I refuse."

"Stampoff, I shall draw a confession from you even though you die under my hands."

"I have faced death many times for the King of Kosnovia," said the harsh Serbian voice, "and I shall not shrink from it now, whether at the hands of the King or his foes. Send your mother away; then, perhaps, I may tell you what you want to know. The thing is done, and I, for one, shall not shirk the consequences."

"My mother again! Must she be spared though you have sacrificed her son?"

With a quick movement that sent tremors through Julius and the Greek, since he was compelled to pass close to both, he strode to the quaking Princess and caught her almost roughly by the shoulder.

"I feared this from the outset," he cried. "Did Stampoff make you the agent of his hellish work? Joan would trust you. Speak to me, mother! Was it you who wrought this evil?"

Her head was bent low, and she gasped something that sounded like an excuse. Alec recoiled from her in sudden horror. His hands were pressed feverishly to his forehead, and a hoarse cry of anguish came from his panting breast.

"I think I shall go mad!" he almost sobbed. "My own mother enter into this league against me! My mother——Oh, it cannot be! Stampoff, you, I know, would not scruple to sacrifice my dearest hopes to further your designs. Could you find none but my mother to aid you?"

He reeled as under a blow from an unseen hand, and at that unfortunate moment Prince Michael Delgrado thought fit to assert his authority.

"This ridiculous scene has gone far enough," he cried. "I was not aware that your pretty artist had quitted Delgratz; but it is quite evident that her departure is the best thing that could possibly happen for the good of the Kingdom. If Stampoff advised it, and your mother saw fit to point out to the girl the danger she was bringing to you and the monarchy, such action on their part has my complete approval."

Alec gazed blankly at the pompous little man. It needed but Prince Michael's outburst to stamp the whole episode with the seal of ineffable meanness and double dealing. He recalled the cowardice displayed by the Prince when Stampoff urged him to seize the vacant throne, and his gorge rose at the thought that Joan had been driven from his arms in order that this pygmy might secure the annual pittance that would supply his lusts in Paris. At that moment Alec was Berserk with impotent rage. His mother's complicity in the banishing of Joan denied him a victim on whom to wreak his wrath.

But there still remained a vengeance, dire and far reaching, which would teach a bitter lesson to those who had entered into so unworthy a conspiracy.

Leaping to the curtain which concealed the sword, he snatched it up and smashed it across his knee. "See, then, how I treat the symbol of my monarchy," he cried with a terrible laugh. "I shall soon demonstrate to you what a pricked balloon is this Kingship of which you prate. I believe that you, my own father, are ready to supplant me, I know that Julius, my cousin, is straining every nerve to procure my downfall; but you shall learn how a man who despises the pinchbeck honors of a throne can defeat your petty malice and miserable scheming. Monsieur Nesimir, I proclaim Kosnovia a Republic from this hour! Here and now I abdicate! Summon a meeting of the Assembly to-morrow, and I shall give its members the best of reasons why the State will prosper more under the people's rule than under that of either of the men who are so anxious to succeed me."

"Abdicate! Republic! What monstrous folly!" cried Prince Michael, his plethoric face convulsed with anger at this unexpected counterstroke.

"I am saying that which, with God's help, I shall perform!" cried Alec, despair falling from him like a discarded garment as he realized what his project would mean to Joan and himself.

"You may abdicate, of course, if you choose," came the scornful retort; "but you have no power to break the Delgrado line."

"My power will be put to the test to-morrow," said Alec. "I am not afraid to measure my strength against the pitiful cowards who struck at me through a woman's love."

"Pay no heed to him, Monsieur Nesimir!" piped Prince Michael, whose voice rose to a thin falsetto. "He is beside himself. If he chooses to vacate the throne, it reverts to me."

"A Republic in Kosnovia!" snarled Stampoff. "That, indeed, will mark the beginning of the end for the Slav race. A single year would wipe us out of existence. What say you, Beliani, and you, Marulitch? Why are you dumb? Was it for this that we have striven through so many years? Shall our country be wrecked now because a hot headed youth puts his vows to a woman before every consideration of national welfare?"

"The notion is preposterous!" growled Julius, gaining courage from Stampoff's bold denunciation; but Beliani tried to temporize.

"We are far too excited to deal with this vexed affair to-night," he said. "The King is naturally aggrieved by a trying experience, and is hardly in a fit state of mind to consider the grave issues raised by his words. Let