The Great Prince Shan, E. Phillips Oppenheim [positive books to read TXT] 📗

was the sound of the area gate being opened. Karschoff put on his hat. He looked Nigel in the face.

"Maggie," he began—

Nigel nodded understandingly as he threw open the front door.

"I'll tell you about it to-morrow," he promised, "or rather later on to-day. She's a little overwrought. Otherwise—there's nothing."

Karschoff turned away with a sigh of relief.

"I am glad," he said. "Prince Shan is the soul of honour according to his own standard, but these Orientals—one never knows. I am glad, Nigel."

CHAPTER XXIII

In his spacious reception room, with its blue walls, the high vases of flowers, the faint odour of incense, its indefinable ascetic charm, Prince Shan sat in his high-backed chair whilst Li Wen, his trusted secretary talked. Li Wen was very eloquent. His tone was never raised, he never forgot that he was speaking to a being of a superior world. He had a great deal to say, however, and he was eager to say it. Prince Shan, as he listened, smoked a long cigarette in a yellow tube. He wore a ring in which was set an uncut green stone on the fourth finger of his left hand. Although the hour was barely nine o'clock, he was shaved and dressed as though for a visit of ceremony. He listened to Li Wen gravely and critically.

"I am sorry about the little one," he said, looking through the cloud of tobacco smoke up towards the ceiling. "Nita has been very useful. She has been as faithful, too, as is possible for a woman."

Li Wen bowed and waited. He knew better than to interrupt.

"It was through the information which Nita brought me," his master went on, "that I have been able to check the truth of Immelan's statement as to the French dispositions and the rapprochement with Italy. Nita has served me very well indeed. What she has done in this matter, she has done in a moment of caprice."

"My lord," Li Wen ventured, "a woman is of no account in the plans of the greatest. She is like a leaf blown hither or thither on the winds of love or jealousy. She may be used, but she must be discarded."

"It is a strange world, this western world," Prince Shan mused. "In our own country, Li Wen, we plot or we fight, we build the great places, climb to the lofty heights, and when we rest we pluck flowers, and women are our flowers. But here, while one builds, the women are there; while one climbs, the women are in the way. They jostle the thoughts, they disturb the emotions, not only of the poet and the pleasure seeker, but of the man who hews his way upwards to the goal he seeks. And it is very deliberate, Li Wen. An Englishman eats and drinks in public and places opposite him a flower he has plucked or hopes to pluck. He drugs himself deliberately. Half the time when he should be soaring in his thoughts, he descends of deliberate intent. Instead of his flower, he makes his woman the partner of his grossness."

"The master speaks," Li Wen murmured. "But what of the woman? She awaits your pleasure."

"I shall hear what she has to say," Prince Shan decided.

Walking backwards as nimbly as a cat, his head drooped, his hands in front of him, Li Wen left his master's presence. A moment later he reappeared, ushering in La Belle Nita. Prince Shan waved him away. The girl came slowly forward, pale and trembling, smouldering fires in her narrow eyes. Not a muscle of Prince Shan's face moved. He watched her approach in silence. She sank on to the floor by the side of his chair.

"What is my master's will?" she asked.

Prince Shan looked downwards at her, and she began to tremble again. There was nothing threatening in his eyes, nothing menacing in his expression. Nevertheless, she felt the chill of death.

"You have done me many good and faithful services, Nita," he said. "What evil spirit has put it into your brain that it would be a good thing to deceive me?"

Her scarlet lips opened and closed again.

"How have I deceived?" she faltered. "I gave the keys to the woman with the blue eyes, and I sent her to my lord. It was a hard thing to do that, but I did it. Was there any risk of evil? My lord was here to deal with her."

"Why did you do this thing, Nita?" he asked.

"My lord knows," she answered simply. "I did it to bring evil upon this English woman whom he has preferred. I did it that he might understand. It was my lord himself who told me that she was a spy. Now it is proved."

Prince Shan's fingers stole into the pocket of his coat. He held out a crumpled sheet of paper, on which was written a single sentence. The girl began to shiver.

"You have been very anxious indeed, Nita," he said, "to bring evil upon this woman. This is the message you sent to Immelan. Do you recognise your words? Listen, these are your words:

"'The greatest of all will desert you, if the Englishwoman whom he loves is not speedily removed. Even to-night he may give papers into her hand, and your secret will be known.'"

The girl sat transfixed. She seemed to have lost all power of speech.

"That is a copy of the message which you sent to Immelan," he told her sternly.

"It is the terrible Li Wen," she faltered. "He has the second sight. The devil walks with him."

"The devil is sometimes a useful confederate," her companion continued equably. "You warned Immelan that it was in my mind to refuse his terms and to open my heart to the Englishwoman, and you seduced Sen Lu to carry your message. Yet your judgment was at fault. The hand of Immelan was stretched out against me, and me alone. But for my knowledge of these things, I might have sat in the place of Sen Lu, who rightly died in my stead. What have you to say?"

She rose to her feet. He made no movement, but his eyes watched her, and the muscles of his body stiffened. He watched the white hand which stole irresolutely towards the loose folds of her coat.

"You ask me why I have done this," she cried, "but you already know. It is because you have taken this woman with the blue eyes into your heart."

"If that were true," he answered, "of what concern is it to others? I am Prince Shan."

"You sent me here to breathe this cursed western atmosphere," she moaned, "to drink in their thoughts and see with their eyes. I see and know the folly of it all, but who can escape? Jealousy with us is a disease. Over there one creeps away like a hurt animal because there is nothing else. Here it is different. The Frenchwoman, the Englishwoman, who loses her lover—she does not fold her hands. She strikes, she is a wronged creature. I too have felt that."

Her master sat for long in silence.

"You are right," he pronounced. "I shall try to be just. You are a person of small understanding. You have never made any effort to live with your head in the clouds. Let that be so. The fault was mine."

"I do not wish to live," she cried.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Live or die—what does it matter?" he answered indifferently. "With life there is pain, and with death there is none, but if you choose life, remember this. The woman with the blue eyes, as you call her, has become the star of my life. If harm should come to her, not only you, but every one of your family and race, in whatsoever part of the world they may be, will leave this life in agony."

The girl stood and wondered.

"My lord thinks so much of a plaything?" she murmured.

Prince Shan frowned. His finely shaped, silky eyebrows almost met. She covered her eyes and drooped her head.

"We of the East," he said, "although we are the mightier race, progress slowly, because the love of new things is not with us. Something of western ways I have learned, and the love of woman. It is not for a plaything I desire her whom we will not name. She shall sit by my side and rule. I shall wed her with my brain as with my body. Our minds will move together. We shall feel the same shivering pleasure when we rule the world with great thoughts as when our bodies touch. I shall teach her to know her soul, even as my own has been revealed to me."

"No woman is worthy of this, my lord," the girl faltered.

He waved his hand and she stole away. At the door he stopped her.

"Do you go to life or death, Nita?" he asked.

She looked at him with a great sorrow.

"I am a worthless thing," she replied. "I go where my lord's words have sent me."

Li Wen reappeared presently for an appointed audience. He brought messages.

"Highness," he announced, "there is a code dispatch here from Ki-Chou. An American gained entrance to the City last week. Yesterday he left by æroplane for India. He was overtaken and captured. It is feared, however, that he has agents over the frontier, for no papers were found upon him."

"It was a great achievement," Prince Shan said thoughtfully. "No other foreigner has ever passed into our secret city. Is there word as to how he got there?"

"He came as a Russian artificer from that city in Russia of which we do not speak," Li Wen replied. "He brought letters, and his knowledge was great."

"His name?" the Prince asked.

"Gilbert Jesson, Highness. His passport and papers refer to Washington, but his message, if he sent one, is believed to have come to London."

"The man must die," the Prince said calmly. "That, without doubt, he expects. Yet the news is not serious. My heart has spoken for peace, Li Wen."

Li Wen bowed low. His master watched him curiously.

"If I had asked it, Li Wen, where would your counsel have led?"

"Towards peace, Highness. I do not trust Immelan. It is not in such a manner that China's Empire shall spread. There are ancestors of mine who would turn in their graves to find China in league with a western Power."

"You are a wise man, Li Wen," his master declared. "We hold the mastery of the world. What shall we do with it?"

"The mightiest sword is that which enforces peace," was the calm reply. "Highness, the lady whom you were expecting waits in the anteroom."

Prince Shan nodded. He welcomed Naida, who was ushered in a moment or two later, with rather more than his usual grave and pleasant courtesy, leading her himself to a chair.

"I wondered," she confessed, "if I were ever to be allowed to see inside your wonderful house."

"It is my misfortune to be compelled to pay so brief a visit to this country," he replied. "As a rule, it gives me great pleasure to open my rooms three evenings and entertain those who care to come and see me."

"I have heard of your entertainments," she said, smiling. "Prima donnas sing. You rob the capitals of Europe to find your music. Then the great Monsieur Auguste is lured from Paris to prepare your supper, and not a lady leaves without some priceless jewel."

"I entertain so seldom," he reminded her. "I fear that the fame of my feasts has been exaggerated."

"When do you leave, Prince?" she asked him.

"Within a few days," he replied.

"I come for your last word," she announced. "All that I have written to Paul Matinsky you know."

"The last word is not yet to be spoken," he said. "This, however, you may tell Matinsky. The scheme of Oscar Immelan has been laid before me. I have rejected it."

"In what other way, then, would you use your power?" she asked.

He made no answer. She watched him with a great and growing curiosity.

"Prince," she said, "they tell me that you