The Lady of the Shroud, Bram Stoker [most life changing books .txt] 📗

the Council was sitting, word came that a great peril to the

town of Ilsin had been averted. A war-vessel acknowledging to no

nationality, and therefore to be deemed a pirate, had threatened to

bombard the town; but just before the time fixed for the fulfilment

of her threat, she was shaken to such an extent by some sub-aqueous

means that, though she herself was seemingly uninjured, nothing was

left alive on board. Thus the Lord preserves His own! The

consideration of this, as well as the other incident, was postponed

until the coming Voivode and the Gospodar Rupert, together with who

were already on their way hither.

 

THE SAME (LATER IN THE SAME DAY).

 

The Council resumed its sitting at four o’clock. The Voivode Peter

Vissarion and the Voivodin Teuta had arrived with the “Gospodar

Rupert,” as the mountaineers call him (Mr. Rupert Sent Leger) on the

armoured yacht he calls The Lady. The National Council showed great

pleasure when the Voivode entered the hall in which the Council met.

He seemed much gratified by the reception given to him. Mr. Rupert

Sent Leger, by the express desire of the Council, was asked to be

present at the meeting. He took a seat at the bottom of the hall,

and seemed to prefer to remain there, though asked by the President

of the Council to sit at the top of the table with himself and the

Voivode.

 

When the formalities of such Councils had been completed, the Voivode

handed to the President a memorandum of his report on his secret

mission to foreign Courts on behalf of the National Council. He then

explained at length, for the benefit of the various members of the

Council, the broad results of his mission. The result was, he said,

absolutely satisfactory. Everywhere he had been received with

distinguished courtesy, and given a sympathetic hearing. Several of

the Powers consulted had made delay in giving final answers, but

this, he explained, was necessarily due to new considerations arising

from the international complications which were universally dealt

with throughout the world as “the Balkan Crisis.” In time, however

(the Voivode went on), these matters became so far declared as to

allow the waiting Powers to form definite judgment—which, of course,

they did not declare to him—as to their own ultimate action. The

final result—if at this initial stage such tentative setting forth

of their own attitude in each case can be so named—was that he

returned full of hope (founded, he might say, upon a justifiable

personal belief) that the Great Powers throughout the world—North,

South, East, and West—were in thorough sympathy with the Land of the

Blue Mountains in its aspirations for the continuance of its freedom.

“I also am honoured,” he continued, “to bring to you, the Great

Council of the nation, the assurance of protection against unworthy

aggression on the part of neighbouring nations of present greater

strength.”

 

Whilst he was speaking, the Gospodar Rupert was writing a few words

on a strip of paper, which he sent up to the President. When the

Voivode had finished speaking, there was a prolonged silence. The

President rose, and in a hush said that the Council would like to

hear Mr. Rupert Sent Leger, who had a communication to make regarding

certain recent events.

 

Mr. Rupert Sent Leger rose, and reported how, since he had been

entrusted by the Council with the rescue of the Voivode Peter of

Vissarion, he had, by aid of the Voivodin, effected the escape of the

Voivode from the Silent Tower; also that, following this happy event,

the mountaineers, who had made a great cordon round the Tower so soon

as it was known that the Voivode had been imprisoned within it, had

stormed it in the night. As a determined resistance was offered by

the marauders, who had used it as a place of refuge, none of these

escaped. He then went on to tell how he sought interview with the

Captain of the strange warship, which, without flying any flag,

invaded our waters. He asked the President to call on me to read the

report of that meeting. This, in obedience to his direction, I did.

The acquiescent murmuring of the Council showed how thoroughly they

endorsed Mr. Sent Leger’s words and acts.

 

When I resumed my seat, Mr. Sent Leger described how, just before the

time fixed by the “pirate Captain”—so he designated him, as did

every speaker thereafter—the warship met with some under-sea

accident, which had a destructive effect on all on board her. Then

he added certain words, which I give verbatim, as I am sure that

others will some time wish to remember them in their exactness:

 

“By the way, President and Lords of the Council, I trust I may ask

you to confirm Captain Rooke, of the armoured yacht The Lady, to be

Admiral of the Squadron of the Land of the Blue Mountains, and also

Captain (tentatively) Desmond, late First-Lieutenant of The Lady, to

the command of the second warship of our fleet—the as yet unnamed

vessel, whose former Captain threatened to bombard Ilsin. My Lords,

Admiral Rooke has done great service to the Land of the Blue

Mountains, and deserves well at your hands. You will have in him, I

am sure, a great official. One who will till his last breath give

you good and loyal service.”

 

He had sat down, the President put to the Council resolutions, which

were passed by acclamation. Admiral Rooke was given command of the

navy, and Captain Desmond confirmed in his appointment to the

captaincy of the new ship, which was, by a further resolution, named

The Gospodar Rupert.

 

In thanking the Council for acceding to his request, and for the

great honour done him in the naming of the ship, Mr. Sent Leger said:

 

“May I ask that the armoured yacht The Lady be accepted by you, the

National Council, on behalf of the nation, as a gift on behalf of the

cause of freedom from the Voivodin Teuta?”

 

In response to the mighty cheer of the Council with which the

splendid gift was accepted the Gospodar Rupert—Mr. Sent Leger—

bowed, and went quietly out of the room.

 

As no agenda of the meeting had been prepared, there was for a time,

not silence, but much individual conversation. In the midst of it

the Voivode rose up, whereupon there was a strict silence. All

listened with an intensity of eagerness whilst he spoke.

 

“President and Lords of the Council, Archbishop, and Vladika, I

should but ill show my respect did I hesitate to tell you at this the

first opportunity I have had of certain matters personal primarily to

myself, but which, in the progress of recent events, have come to

impinge on the affairs of the nation. Until I have done so, I shall

not feel that I have done a duty, long due to you or your

predecessors in office, and which I hope you will allow me to say

that I have only kept back for purposes of statecraft. May I ask

that you will come back with me in memory to the year 1890, when our

struggle against Ottoman aggression, later on so successfully brought

to a close, was begun. We were then in a desperate condition. Our

finances had run so low that we could not purchase even the bread

which we required. Nay, more, we could not procure through the

National Exchequer what we wanted more than bread—arms of modern

effectiveness; for men may endure hunger and yet fight well, as the

glorious past of our country has proved again and again and again.

But when our foes are better armed than we are, the penalty is

dreadful to a nation small as our own is in number, no matter how

brave their hearts. In this strait I myself had to secretly raise a

sufficient sum of money to procure the weapons we needed. To this

end I sought the assistance of a great merchant-prince, to whom our

nation as well as myself was known. He met me in the same generous

spirit which he had shown to other struggling nationalities

throughout a long and honourable career. When I pledged to him as

security my own estates, he wished to tear up the bond, and only

under pressure would he meet my wishes in this respect. Lords of the

Council, it was his money, thus generously advanced, which procured

for us the arms with which we hewed out our freedom.

 

“Not long ago that noble merchant—and here I trust you will pardon

me that I am so moved as to perhaps appear to suffer in want of

respect to this great Council—this noble merchant passed to his

account—leaving to a near kinsman of his own the royal fortune which

he had amassed. Only a few hours ago that worthy kinsman of the

benefactor of our nation made it known to me that in his last will he

had bequeathed to me, by secret trust, the whole of those estates

which long ago I had forfeited by effluxion of time, inasmuch as I

had been unable to fulfil the terms of my voluntary bond. It grieves

me to think that I have had to keep you so long in ignorance of the

good thought and wishes and acts of this great man.

 

“But it was by his wise counsel, fortified by my own judgment, that I

was silent; for, indeed, I feared, as he did, lest in our troublous

times some doubting spirit without our boundaries, or even within it,

might mistrust the honesty of my purposes for public good, because I

was no longer one whose whole fortune was invested within our

confines. This prince-merchant, the great English Roger Melton—let

his name be for ever graven on the hearts of our people!—kept silent

during his own life, and enjoined on others to come after him to keep

secret from the men of the Blue Mountains that secret loan made to me

on their behalf, lest in their eyes I, who had striven to be their

friend and helper, should suffer wrong repute. But, happily, he has

left me free to clear myself in your eyes. Moreover, by arranging to

have—under certain contingencies, which have come to pass—the

estates which were originally my own retransferred to me, I have no

longer the honour of having given what I could to the national cause.

All such now belongs to him; for it was his money—and his only—

which purchased our national armament.

 

“His worthy kinsman you already know, for he has not only been

amongst you for many months, but has already done you good service in

his own person. He it was who, as a mighty warrior, answered the

summons of the Vladika when misfortune came upon my house in the

capture by enemies of my dear daughter, the Voivodin Teuta, whom you

hold in your hearts; who, with a chosen band of our brothers, pursued

the marauders, and himself, by a deed of daring and prowess, of which

poets shall hereafter sing, saved her, when hope itself seemed to be

dead, from their ruthless hands, and brought her back to us; who

administered condign punishment to the miscreants who had dared to so

wrong her. He it was who later took me, your servant, out of the

prison wherein another band of Turkish miscreants held me captive;

rescued me, with the help of my dear daughter, whom he had already

freed, whilst I had on my person the documents of international

secrecy of which I have already advised you—rescued me whilst I had

been as yet unsubjected to the indignity of search.

 

“Beyond this you know now that of which I was in partial ignorance:

how he had, through the skill and devotion of your new Admiral,

wrought