Romance Island

by Zona Gale

  CHAPTER IV

  THE PRINCE OF FAR-AWAY

  No. 19 McDougle Street had been chosen as a likely market by a"hokey-pokey" man, who had wheeled his cart to the curb before theentrance. There, despite Mrs. Hastings' coach-man's peremptoryappeal, he continued to dispense stained ice-cream to the littledenizens of No. 19 and the other houses in the row. The brougham,however, at once proved a counter-attraction and immediately anopposition group formed about the carriage step and exchangedpenetrating comments upon the livery.

  "Mrs. Hastings, you and Miss Holland would better sit here,perhaps," suggested St. George, alighting hurriedly, "until I see ifthis man is to be found."

  "Please," said Miss Holland, "I've always been longing to go intoone of these houses, and now I'm going. Aren't we, Aunt Dora?"

  "If you think--" ventured Mr. Frothingham in perplexity; but Mr.Frothingham's perplexity always impressed one as duty-born ratherthan judicious, and Miss Holland had already risen.

  "Olivia!" protested Mrs. Hastings faintly, accepting St. George'shand, "do look at those children's aprons. I'm afraid we'll allcontract fever after fever, just coming this far."

  Unkempt women were occupying the doorstep of No. 19. St. Georgeaccosted them and asked the way to the rooms of a Mr. Tabnit. Theysmiled, displaying their wonderful teeth, consulted together, andfinally with many labials and uncouth pointings of shapely handsthey indicated the door of the "first floor front," whose woodenshutters were closely barred. St. George led the way and entered thebare, unclean passage where discordant voices and the odours ofcooking wrought together to poison the air. He tapped smartly at thedoor.

  Immediately it was opened by a graceful boy, dressed in a long,belted coat of dun-colour. He had straight black hair, and eyeswhich one saw before one saw his face, and he gravely bowed to eachof the party in turn before answering St. George's question.

  "Assuredly," said the youth in perfect English, "enter."

  They found themselves in an ample room extending the full depth ofthe house; and partly because the light was dim and partly in sheeramazement they involuntarily paused as the door clicked behind them.The room's contrast to the squalid neighbourhood was complete. Theapartment was carpeted in soft rugs laid one upon another so thatfootfalls were silenced. The walls and ceiling were smoothly coveredwith a neutral-tinted silk, patterned in dim figures; and from afluted pillar of exceeding lightness an enormous candelabrum shedclear radiance upon the objects in the room. The couches and divanswere woven of some light reed, made with high fantastic backs, inperfect purity of line however, and laid with white mattresses. Alittle reed table showed slender pipes above its surface and these,at a touch from the boy, sent to a great height tiny columns ofwater that tinkled back to the square of metal upon which the tablewas set. A huge fan of blanched grasses automatically swayed fromabove. On a side-table were decanters and cups and platters of amaterial frail and transparent. Before the shuttered window stood anobservable plant with coloured leaves. On a great table in theroom's centre were scattered objects which confused the eye. A lightcurtain stirring in the fan's faint breeze hung at the far end ofthe room.

  In a career which had held many surprises, some of which St. Georgewould never be at liberty to reveal to the paper in whose service hehad come upon them, this was one of the most alluring. The mereexistence of this strange and luxurious habitation in the heart ofsuch a neighbourhood would, past expression, delight Mr. Crass, thefeature man, and no doubt move even Chillingworth to approval.Chillingworth and Crass! Already they seemed strangers. St. Georgeglanced at Miss Holland; she was looking from side to side, like abird alighted among strange flowers; she met his eyes and dimpledin frank delight. Mrs. Hastings sat erectly beside her, hertortoise-rimmed glasses expressing bland approval. The improbabilityof her surroundings had quite escaped her in her satisfied discoverythat the place was habitable. The lawyer, his thin lips parted, hishead thrown back so that his hair rested upon his coat collar,remained standing, one long hand upon a coat lapel.

  "Ah," said Miss Holland softly, "it _is_ an adventure, Aunt Dora."

  St. George liked that. It irritated him, he had once admitted, tosee a woman live as if living were a matter of life and death. Hewished her to be alive to everything, but without suspiciouslyscrutinizing details, like a census-taker. To appreciate did notseem to him properly to mean to assess. Miss Holland, he would havesaid, seemed to live by the beats of her heart and not by the wavesof her hair--but another proof, perhaps, of "if thou likest heropinions thou wilt praise her virtues."

  It was but a moment before the curtain was lifted, and thereapproached a youth, apparently in the twenties, slender anddelicately formed as a woman, his dark face surmounted by a greatdeal of snow-white hair. He was wearing garments of grey, cut inunusual and graceful lines, and his throat was closely wound infolds of soft white, fastened by a rectangular green jewel ofnotable size and brilliance. His eyes, large and of exceeding beautyand gentleness, were fixed upon St. George.

  "Sir," said St. George, "we have been given this address as onewhere we may be assisted in some inquiries of the utmost importance.The name which we have is simply 'Tabnit.' Have I the honour--"

  Their host bowed.

  "I am Prince Tabnit," he said quietly.

  St. George, filled with fresh amazement, gravely named himself and,making presentation of the others, purposely omitted the name ofMiss Holland. However, hardly had he finished before their hostbowed before Miss Holland herself.

  "And you," he said, "you to whom I owe an expiation which I cannever make,--do you know it is my servant who would have taken yourlife?"

  In the brief interval following this naive assertion, his guestswere not unnaturally speechless. Miss Holland, bending slightlyforward, looked at the prince breathlessly.

  "I have suffered," he went on, "I have suffered indescribably sincethat terrible morning when I missed her and understood her mission.I followed quickly--I was without when you entered, but I came toolate. Since then I have waited, unwilling to go to you, certain thatthe gods would permit the possible. And now--what shall I say?"

  He hesitated, his eyes meeting Miss Holland's. And in that momentMrs. Hastings found her voice. She curved the chain of hereye-glasses over her ear, threw back her head until thetortoise-rims included her host, and spoke her mind.

  "Well, Prince Tabnit," she said sharply--quite as if, St. Georgethought, she had been nursery governess to princes all her life--"Imust say that I think your regret comes somewhat late in the day.It's all very well to suffer as you say over what your servant hastried to do. But what kind of man must you be to have such aservant, in the first place? Didn't you know that she was dangerousand blood-thirsty, and very likely a maniac-born?"

  Her voice, never modulated in her excitements, was so full that noone heard at that instant a quick, indrawn breath from St. George,having something of triumph and something of terror. Even as helistened he had been running swiftly over the objects in the room tofasten every one in his memory, and his eyes had rested upon thetable at his side. A disc of bronze, supported upon a carven tripod,caught the light and challenged attention to its delicate traceries;and within its border of asps and goat's horns he saw cut in thedull metal a sphinx crucified upon an upright cross--an exactfacsimile of the device upon that strange opalized glass from somefar-away island which he had lately noted in the window in Mrs.Hastings' drawing-room. Instantly his mind was besieged by a volleyof suppositions and imaginings, but even in his intense excitementas to what this simple discovery might bode, he heard the prince'ssoft reply to Mrs. Hastings:

  "Madame," said the prince, "she is a loyal creature. Whatever shedoes, she believes herself to be doing in my service. I trusted her.I believed that such error was impossible to her."

  "Error!" shrilled Mrs. Hastings, looking about her for support andfinding little in the aspect of Mr. Augustus Frothingham, whoappeared to be regarding the whole proceeding as one from which hewas to extract data to be thought out at so
me future infinitelyremoved.

  As for St. George, he had never had great traffic with a futureinfinitely removed; he had a youthful and somewhat imaginativefashion of striking before the iron was well in the fire.

  "Your servant believed, then, your Highness," he said clearly,"that in taking Miss Holland's life she was serving you?"

  "I must regretfully conclude so."

  St. George rose, holding the little brazen disc which he had takenfrom the table, and confronted his host, compelling his eyes.

  "Perhaps you will tell us, Prince Tabnit," he said coolly, "what itis that the people who use this device find against Miss Holland'sfather?"

  St. George heard Olivia's little broken cry.

  "It is the same!" she exclaimed. "Aunt Dora--Mr. Frothingham--it isthe crucified sphinx that was on so many of the things that fathersent. Oh," she cried to the prince, "can it be possible that youknow him--that you know anything of my father?"

  To St. George's amazement the face of the prince softened and glowedas if with peculiar delight, and he looked at St. George withadmiration.

  "Is it possible," he murmured, half to himself, "that your race hasalready developed intuition? Are you indeed so near to the Unknown?"

  He took quick steps away and back, and turned again to St. George, astrange joy dawning in his face.

  "If there be some who are ready to know!" he said. "Ah," he recalledhimself penitently to Miss Holland, "your father--Otho Holland, Ihave seen him many times."

  "_Seen Otho_!" shrilled Mrs. Hastings, as pink and trembling andexpressionless as a disturbed mold of jelly. "Oh, poor, dear Otho!Did he live where there are people like your frightful servant?Olivia, think! Maybe he is lying at the bottom of a gorge, allwounded and bloody, with a dagger in his back! Oh, my poor, dearOtho, who used to wheel me about!"

  Mrs. Hastings collapsed softly on the divan, her glasses fallen inher lap, her side-combs slipping silently to the rug. Olivia hadrisen and was standing before Prince Tabnit.

  "Tell me," she said trembling, "when have you seen him? Is he well?"

  Prince Tabnit swept the faces of the others and his eyes returned toMiss Holland and dropped to the floor.

  "The last time that I saw him, Miss Holland," he answered, "wasthree months ago. He was then alive and well."

  Something in his tone chilled St. George and sent a sudden thrill offear to his heart.

  "He was then alive and well?" St. George repeated slowly. "Will youtell us more, your Highness? Will you tell us why the death of hisdaughter should be considered a service to the prince of a countrywhich he had visited?"

  "You are very wonderful," observed the prince, smiling meditativelyat St. George, "and your penetration gives me good news--news thatI had not hoped for, yet. I can not tell you all that you ask, but Ican tell you much. Will you sit down?"

  He turned and glanced at the curtain at the far end of the room.Instantly the boy servant appeared, bearing a tray on which wereplaced, in dishes of delicate-coloured filigree, strange daintiesnot to be classified even by a cosmopolitan, with his Flemish andFinnish and all but Icelandic cafes in every block.

  "Pray do me the honour," the prince besought, taking the dishes fromthe hands of the boy. "It gives me pleasure, Miss Holland, to tellyou that your father has no doubt had these very plates set beforehim."

  Upon a little table he deftly arranged the dishes with all thesmiling ease of one to whom afternoon tea is the only businesstoward, and to whom an attempted murder is wholly alien. Heimpressed St. George vaguely as one who seemed to have risen fromthe dead of the crudities of mere events and to be living in a rareratmosphere. The lawyer's face was a study. Mr. Augustus Frothinghamnever went to the theatre because he did not believe that a man ofaffairs should unduly stimulate the imagination.

  There was set before them honey made by bees fed only upon atropical flower of rare fragrance; cakes flavoured with wine thathad been long buried; a paste of cream, thick with rich nuts andwith the preserved buds of certain flowers; and little whiteberries, such as the Japanese call "pinedews"; there was a teadistilled from the roots of rare exotics, and other things savouryand fantastic. So potent was the spell of the prince's hospitality,and so gracious the insistence with which he set before them thestrange and odourous dishes, that even Olivia, eager almost to tearsfor news of her father, and Mrs. Hastings, as critical andsuspicious as some beetle with long antennae, might not refuse them.As for Mr. Augustus Frothingham, although this might be Cagliostro'sspagiric food, or "extract of Saturn," for aught that his previousexperience equipped him to deny, yet he nibbled, and gazed, and wasconstrained to nibble again.

  When they had been served, Prince Tabnit abruptly began speaking,the while turning the fine stem of his glass in his delicatefingers.

  "You do not know," he said simply, "where the island of Yaque lies?"

  Mrs. Hastings sat erect.

  "Yaque!" she exclaimed. "That was the name of the place where yourfather was, Olivia. I know I remembered it because it wasn't likethe man What's-his-name in _As You Like It_, and because it didn'tbegin with a J."

  "The island is my home," Prince Tabnit continued, "and now, for thefirst time, I find myself absent from it. I have come a longjourney. It is many miles to that little land in the eastern seas,that exquisite bit of the world, as yet unknown to any save theisland-men. We have guarded its existence, but I have no fear totell you, for no mariner, unaided by an islander, could steer acourse to its coasts. And I can tell you little about the island forreasons which, if you will forgive me, you would hardly understand.I must tell you something of it, however, that you may know theremarkable conditions which led to the introduction of Mr. Hollandto Yaque.

  "The island of Yaque," continued the prince, "or Arqua, as the namewas written by the ancient Phoenicians, has been ruled by hereditarymonarchs since 1050 B.C., when it was settled."

  "What date did I understand you to say, sir?" demanded Mr. AugustusFrothingham.

  The prince smiled faintly.

  "I am well aware," he said, "that to the western mind--indeed, toany modern mind save our own--I shall seem to be speaking inmockery. None the less, what I am saying is exact. It is believedthat the enterprises of the Phoenicians in the early ages took thembut a short distance, if at all, beyond the confines of theMediterranean. It is merely known that, in the period of which Ispeak, a more adventurous spirit began to be manifested, and theStraits of Gibraltar were passed and settlements were made inIberia. But how far these adventurers actually penetrated has beenrecorded only in those documents that are in the hands of mypeople--descendants of the boldest of these mariners who pushedtheir galleys out into the Atlantic. At this time the king of Tyrewas Abibaal, soon to be succeeded by his son Hiram, the friend, youwill remember, of King David,--"

  Mr. Frothingham, who did not go to the theatre for fear of excitinghis imagination, uttered the soft non-explosion which should havebeen speech.

  "King Abibaal," continued the prince, "who maintained his court ingreat pomp, had a younger and favourite son who bore his own name.He was a wild youth of great daring, and upon the accession ofHiram to the throne he left Tyre and took command of a galley ofadventuresome spirits, who were among the first to pass thestraits and gain the open sea. The story of their wild voyage Ineed not detail; it is enough to say that their trireme waswrecked upon the coast of Yaque; and Abibaal and those who joinedhim--among them many members of the court circle and even of theroyal family--settled and developed the island. And there the racehas remained without taint of admixture, down to the present day.Of what was wrought on the island I can tell you little, thoughthe time will come when the eyes of the whole world will beturned upon Yaque as the forerunner of mighty things. Ruled overby the descendants of Abibaal, the islanders have dwelt in peaceand plenty for nearly three thousand years--until, in fact, lessthan a year ago. Then the line thus traceable to King Hiramhimself abruptly terminated with the death of King Chelbes,without issue."

  Again Mr. Frothingha
m attempted to speak, and again he collapsedsoftly, without expression, according to his custom. As for St.George, he was remembering how, when he first went to the paper, hehad invariably been sent to the anteroom to listen to the dailytales of invention, oppression and projects for which a continualprocession of the more or less mentally deficient wished the_Sentinel_ to stand sponsor. St. George remembered in particular oneyoung student who soberly claimed to have invented wirelesstelegraphy and who molested the staff for months. Was this oliveprince, he wondered, going to prove himself worth only a half-columnon a back page, after all?

  "I understand you to say," said St. George, with the wearyself-restraint of one who deals with lunatics, "that the line ofKing Hiram, the friend of King David of Israel, became extinct lessthan a year ago?"

  The prince smiled.

  "Do not conceal your incredulity," he said liberally, "for Iforgive it. You see, then," he went on serenely, "how in Yaque thequestion of the succession became engrossing. The matter was notmerely one of ascendancy, for the Yaquians are singularly free fromambition. But their pride in their island is boundless. They see inher the advance guard of civilization, the peculiar people to whomhave come to be intrusted many of the secrets of being. For I shouldtell you that my people live a life that is utterly beyond the kenof all, save a few rare minds in each generation. My people livewhat others dream about, what scientists struggle to fathom, whatthe keenest philosophers and economists among you can not formulate.We are," said Prince Tabnit serenely, "what the world will be athousand years from now."

  "Well, I'm sure," Mrs. Hastings broke in plaintively, "that I hopeyour servant, for instance, is not a sample of what the world iscoming to!"

  The prince smiled indulgently, as if a child had laid a little,detaining hand upon his sleeve.

  "Be that as it may," he said evenly, "the throne of Yaque was stillempty. Many stood near to the crown, but there seemed no reason forchoosing one more than another. One party wished to name the head ofthe House of the Litany, in Med, the King's city, who was the chiefadministrator of justice. Another, more democratic than these,wished to elevate to the throne a man from whose family we had wonknowledge of both perpetual motion and the Fourth Dimension--"

  St. George smiled angelically, as one who resignedly sees the lastfragments of a shining hope float away. This quite settled it. Theolive prince was crazy. Did not St. George remember the old man inthe frayed neckerchief and bagging pockets who had brought to theoffice of the _Sentinel_ chart after chart about perpetual motion,until St. George and Amory had one day told him gravely that theyhad a machine inside the office then that could make more things gofor ever than he had ever dreamed of, though they had _not_ saidthat the machine was named Chillingworth.

  "You have knowledge of both these things?" asked St. Georgeindulgently.

  "Yaque understood both those laws," said the prince quietly, "whenWilliam the Conqueror came to England."

  He hesitated for a moment and then, regardless of another softexplosion from Mr. Frothingham's lips, he added:

  "Do you not see? Will you not understand? It is our knowledge of theFourth Dimension which has enabled us to keep our island a secret."

  St. George suddenly thrilled from head to foot. What if he werespeaking the truth? What if this man were speaking the truth?

  "Moreover," resumed the prince, "there were those among us who hadlong believed that new strength would come to my people by theintroduction of an inhabitant of one of the continents. His comingwould, however, necessitate his sovereignty among us, in fulfilmentof an ancient Phoenician law, providing that the state, and everysatrapy therein, shall receive no service, either of blood or ofbond, nor enter into the marriage contract with an alien; from whichlaw only the royal house is exempt. Thus were the two needs of ourland to be served by the means to which we had recourse. For therebeing no way to settle the difficulty, we vowed to leave the matterto Chance, that great patient arbiter of destinies of which yourcivilization takes no account, save to reduce it to slavery.Accordingly each inhabitant of the island took a solemn oath toawait, with an open mind free from choice or prejudice, thesettlement of the event, certain that the gods would permit thepossible. Five days after this decision our watchers upon the hillssighted a South African transport bound for the Azores to coal. Ahundred miles from our coast she was wrecked, and it was thoughtthat all on board had been lost. A submarine was ordered to thespot--"

  "Do you mean," interrupted St. George, "that you were able to seethe wreck at that distance?"

  "Certainly," said the prince. "Pray forgive me," he added winningly,"if I seem to boast. It is difficult for me to believe that yourappliances are so immature. We were using steamship navigation andlimiting our vision at the time of Pericles, but the futility ofthese was among our first discoveries."

  Involuntarily St. George turned to Miss Holland. What would shethink, he found himself wondering. Her eyes were luminous and herbreath was coming quickly; he was relieved to find that she had notthe infectious vulgarity to doubt the possibility of what seemedimpossible. This was one of the qualities of Mr. AugustusFrothingham, who had assumed an air of polite interest and anaccurately cynical smile, and the manner of generously lending hisprofessional attention to any of the vagaries of the client. Mrs.Hastings stirred uneasily.

  "I'm sure," she said fretfully, "that I must be very stupid, but Isimply can _not_ follow you. Why, you talk about things that don'texist! My husband, who was a very practical and advanced man, wouldhave shown you at once that what you say is impossible."

  Here was the attitude of the Commonplace the world over, thought St.George: to believe in wireless telegraphy simply because it hasbeen found out, and to disbelieve in the Fourth Dimension because ithas not been.

  "I can not explain these things," admitted the prince gravely, "andI dare say that you could prove that they do not exist, just as aman from another planet could show us to his own satisfaction thatthere are no such things as music or colour."

  "Go on, please," said Olivia eagerly.

  "Olivia, I'm sure," protested Mrs. Hastings, "I think it's veryunwomanly of you to show such an interest in these things."

  "Will you bear with me for one moment, Mrs. Hastings?" begged theprince, "and perhaps I shall be able to interest you. The submarinereturned, bringing the sole survivor of the wreck of the Africantransport."

  "Ah, now," Mrs. Hastings assured him blandly, "you are dealing withthings that can happen. My brother Otho, my niece's father, was justthis last year the sole survivor of the wreck of a very importantvessel."

  "I have the honour, Mrs. Hastings, to be narrating to you thecircumstances attending the discovery of your brother and MissHolland's father, after the wreck of that vessel."

  "My father?" cried Olivia.

  The prince bowed.

  "After this manner, Chance had rewarded us. We crowned your fatherKing of Yaque."