This document had been written and signed some years back, and had, therefore, nothing to do with any idea of immediate departure from the world, or premeditated suicide. And once again the King looked searchingly at Thord, as he returned him the paper.
“Her will shall be performed!” he said— “And in a manner befitting her memory, — befitting the love borne to her by a People — and — a King!”
He paused, — then went on softly.
“To you Sergius, my friend and comrade! — to you will be entrusted the task of committing this sweet casket of a sweeter soul to the mercy of the waves! — you, the guardian of her childhood, the defender of her womanhood, the protector of her life — —”
“O God! No more — no more!” cried Thord, suddenly falling on his knees by the couch of the dead— “No more — in mercy! I will do all — all! But leave me with her now! — leave me alone with her, this last little while!”
And breaking into great sobs, he buried his head among the death-flowers in an utter abandonment of despair.
Silently the King watched him for a little space. Then he turned his eyes towards the pale form of the woman he had loved, and who had taught him the noblest and most selfless part of love, sleeping her last sleep, with a fixed sweet smile upon her face.
“We shall meet again, my Lotys!” he whispered— “On the other side of Death!”
And so, — with the quiet air of one who knows a quick way out of difficulty, he departed.
Some five days later, a strange and solemn spectacle was witnessed by thousands of spectators from all the shores and quays of the sea-girt city. A ship set sail for the Land of the Infinite! — a silent passenger went forth on a voyage to the borders of the Unknown! Coffined in state, — with a purple velvet pall trailing its rich folds over the casket which enshrined her perished mortality, — and with flowers of every imaginable rareness, or wildness, scattered about it, — the body of Lotys was, with no religious or formal ceremony, placed on the deck of a sailing-brig, and sent out to the waves for burial. So Sergius Thord had willed it; so Sergius Thord had planned it. He had purchased the vessel for this one purpose, and with his own hands he had strewn the deck with blossoms, till it looked like a floating garden of fairyland. Garlands of roses trailed from the mast, — wreaths from every former member of the now extinct ‘Revolutionary Committee’ were heaped in profusion about the coffin which lay in the centre of the deck, — the sails were white as snow, and one of them bore, the name ‘Lotys’ upon it, in letters of gold. It was arranged that the brig should be towed from the harbour, and out to sea for about a couple of miles, — and when there, should be cut free and set loose to the wind and tide to meet its fate of certain wreckage in the tossing billows beyond. In strange contrast to this floating funeral were the brilliant flags and gay streamers which were already being put up along the streets and quays, as the first signs of the city’s welcome to the Crown Prince and his bride, who were expected to arrive home somewhere within the next ten days. Eager crowds watched the unique ceremony, unknown save in old Viking days, of sending forth a dead voyager to sail the pitiless seas; and countless numbers of small boats attended the funeral vessel in a long flotilla, — escorting it out to that verge where the ocean opened widely to the wider horizon, and spread its high road of silver waves invitingly out to the approaching silent adventurer. Comments ran freely from lip to lip, — Sergius Thord had been seen, pale as death, laying flowers on the deck to the last, — the King, — yes! — the King himself had sent a wreath, as a token of remembrance, to the obsequies of the woman who had saved his life, — the purple velvet pall, with its glittering fringes of gold, had been the gift of the city of which Thord was the lately-elected Deputy, — Louis Valdor had sent that garland of violets, — the great wreath of roses which lay at the head of the coffin, was the offering of the famous little dancer, Pequita, who, it was said, now lay sick of a fever brought on by grief and fretting for the loss of her best friend, — and rich and poor alike had vied with one another in assisting the weird beauty of this exceptional and strange burial, in which no sexton was employed but the wild wind, which would in due time scoop a hollow in the sea, and whirl down into fathomless deeps all that remained of a loving woman, with the offerings of a People’s love around her!
From the Palace windows the Queen watched the weird pageant, with straining eyes, and a sense of relief at her heart. This unknown rival of hers, — this Lotys — was dead! Her body would soon be drifting out on the wild waste of waters, to be caught by the first storm and sunk in the depths of eternal silence. She was glad! — almost she could have sung for joy! The colour mantled on her fair cheeks, — she looked younger and more beautiful than ever. She had learned her long-neglected lesson, — the lesson of, ‘how to love.’ And to herself she humbly confessed the truth — that she loved no other than her husband! The King had now become the centre of her heart, as he had become the centre of his People’s trust. And she watched the vessel bearing the corpse of Lotys, gliding, gliding over the waves — she tracked the circling concourse of boats that went with it — and waited, with quickened breath and eager eyes, till she saw a sudden pause in the procession — when, riding lightly on a shining wave, the funeral-ship seemed to stop for an instant — and then, with a bird-like dip forward, scurried out with full, bulging sails to the open sea! The crowding spectators began to break up and disperse — the flotilla of attendant boats turned back to shore — the dead woman who had held such magnetic influence over the King, was gone! — gone for ever into the watery caverns of endless death!
It was with a light heart that the Queen at last rose from her watch at the window, and prepared to array herself for the return of her sovereign lord. Her eyes sparkled, her lips smiled; she looked the very incarnation of love and tenderness. The snow-peak had melted at last, and underneath the ice, love’s late violets had begun to bloom! She glanced once more out at the sea, where the vanishing death-ship now seemed but a speck on the far horizon, and saw a bank of solemn purple clouds darkening the golden sunset line, — clouds that rose up thickly and swiftly, like magic mountains conjured into sudden existence by some witch in a fairy tale. A gust of wind shook the lattice — and moaned faintly through the chinks of the door.
“There will be a storm to-night!” she said musingly, her eyes following the dispersing crowds, as they poured along the terrace from the shore, or climbed up from the quays to the higher streets of the town:— “There will be a storm! — and the woman who was called Lotys, will know nothing of it! The vessel she sails in will be crushed like a shell in the teeth of the blast, and her body will sink like a stone in the angry sea! So will she sleep — so does her brief power over the King come to an end!”
Turning, she smiled at her lady-in-waiting, Teresa de Launay, who had also watched the sea funeral of Lotys with wondering and often tear-filled eyes.
“How the people must have loved her!” the girl murmured softly; “No poor person or child came to these strange obsequies without flowers! — many wept — and some swear there is no happiness at all for them now, without Lotys! She must have been a sweet, unselfish woman!”
The Queen was silent.
“Since she saved the life of our lord the King, I have often thought of her!” went on Teresa— “I have even hoped to see her! Dearest Madam, would you not have been glad to thank her once before she died?”
The Queen’s face hardened.
“She only did her duty!” was the cold answer— “Every subject in the realm would be proud to have the chance of being the King’s defender!”
At that moment the door opened, and Sir Roger de Launay entered, — then drew back in some surprise and hesitation.
“I crave your pardon, Madam!” he said, bowing low— “I thought the King was here!”
“Truly the King should be here by now,” — replied the Queen gently— “But he is doubtless detained among the people, who wait upon his footsteps, as though he were a demi-
god!” She smiled happily. “He went out to see yonder strange funeral pageant — and left no word of the hour of his return.”
Sir Roger looked perplexed. The Queen noticed his expression of anxiety.
“Stay but a moment, Sir Roger,” she added— “Now I remember, he bade me at sunset, go to my own room and fetch a packet I would find from him there, — he may be waiting for me now!”
She retired, the radiant smile still upon her face, and Sir Roger looked at his sister with concern for her tearful eyes.
“Weeping, Teresa?” he said— “What is the trouble?”
“Nothing!” she answered quickly— “Only a presentiment of evil! That funeral-ship has made me sad!”
Sir Roger said nothing for the moment. He was too preoccupied with his own forebodings to give much heed to hers. He walked to the window.
“There will be a storm to-night!” he said. “Look at those great clouds! They are big with thunder and with rain!”
“Yes!” murmured Teresa— “There will be a storm — Madam!”
She turned with a cry to feel the Queen’s grip on her shoulder — to see the Queen, white as marble, with blazing eyes, possessed by a very frenzy of grief and terror. A tragic picture of despairing Majesty, she confronted the startled De Launay with an open paper in her hand.
“Where is the King?” she demanded, in accents that quivered with fear and passion. “From you, Sir Roger de Launay, must come the answer! To you, his friend and servant, I trusted his safety! And of you I ask again — Where is the King?”
Stupefied and stunned, Sir Roger stared helplessly at this enraged splendour of womanhood, this embodied wrath of royalty.
“Madam!” he stammered,— “I know nothing — save that the King has been sorely stricken by a great sorrow—”
She looked at him with flashing eyes.
“Sorrow for what? — for whom?”
De Launay gazed at her amazedly; — why did she ask of what she knew so well?
“Madam, to answer that is not within my province!”
She was silent, breathing quickly. Great tears gathered on her lashes, but did not fall.
“When saw you his Majesty last?”
“But three hours since, Madam! He bade me leave him alone, saying he would walk a while in the further grounds away from the sight of the sea. He had no mind, he said, to look upon the passing away of Lotys!”
A strange grey pallor crept over the Queen’s face. She stood proudly erect, yet tottered as though about to fall. Teresa de Launay ran to her in terror.
“Dearest Madam!” cried the trembling girl— “Be comforted! Be patient! The King will come!”
“He will never come!” said the Queen in a low choked voice;— “Never again — never, never again! I feel — I know — that I have lost him for ever! He has gone — but where? — O God! — where!”
“Madam!” said Sir Roger, shaken to the soul by the sight of her suppressed agony— “That paper in your hand—”
“This paper,” she said, with a convulsive effort at calmness, “makes me Regent till the return of my son, the Crown Prince — and — at the same time — bids me farewell! Farewell! — and why farewell? Oh, faithless servant!” and she advanced a step, fixing her burning eyes on the stricken De Launay— “I thought you loved me!”
His face flushed — his lips quivered.
“As God lives, Madam, I yield to no one in my love and service of you!”
“Then find the King!” and she stretched out her arm with a gesture of authority— “Bring back to me my husband! — the one man of the world! — the one man I have learned to love! Follow the King! — whether on land or sea, whether alive or dead, — in heaven or hell, follow him! Your place is not with me — but by your master’s side! If you know not whither he has fled, make it your business to learn! — and never let me see your face again till his face shines beside yours, like sunshine against darkness! — till his eyes, his smile make gladness where your presence without him is a mocking misery! Out of my sight! And nevermore return again, save in your duty and attendance on the King!”
“Madam, — Madam!” exclaimed Teresa— “Would you condemn my brother to a lasting banishment? What if the King were dead?”
“Dead!” The word left the Queen’s lips in a sharp sob of pain— “The King cannot die! — he is too strong — too bold and brave! He has met death ere now and conquered it! Dead? No — that is not possible — that could not be!”
She turned again upon Sir Roger, standing mute and pale, a very statue of despair.
“I give you a high mission!” she said— “Fulfil it!”
He started from his unhappy reverie.
“Be sure that I will do so!” he said— “I will — as your Majesty bids me — follow the King! And — till the King returns with me — I also say farewell!”
Catching his sister in his arms, he kissed her with a murmured blessing — and profoundly saluting the woman for whose love’s sake his very life was now demanded, he left the room.
“Roger, Roger!” cried Teresa in an anguish, as the sound of his footsteps died away— “Come back! Come back!”
And falling on her knees by the Queen’s side, she burst into wild weeping.
“If the King has gone for ever, my brother is gone too,” she sobbed— “Oh, dearest Majesty, have you no heart?”
“None!” said the Queen with a strained smile, while the slow, hot tears began to fall from her aching eyes— “None! What heart I had is gone! It follows the King!”
CHAPTER XXXIV. — ABDICATION
A great storm was gathering. The heavy purple clouds which had arisen in the west at sunset, when all that was mortal of Lotys had been sent forth to a lonely burial in the sea, had gradually spread over the whole sky, darkening in hue as they moved, and rolling together in huge opaque masses, which presently began to close in and become denser as the night advanced. By and by a wild wind awoke, as it were, from the very cavities of ocean, and the waves began to hiss warnings all along the coast, and to rise higher and higher over each other’s shoulders as the gale steadily increased. Réné Ronsard, sitting in his cottage, feeble and somewhat ailing, heard the beginnings of the tempest with long-accustomed ears. He was depressed in spirit, yet not altogether solitary, for he had with him a kindly companion in Professor von Glauben. The Professor had been one of the many who had attended the strange funeral-pageant of the afternoon, not only out of interest in, and regret for, the fate of the woman whose unique character he had admired, and whose difficult position he had pitied; but also because he had suffered from an unpleasant presentiment to which he could give no name. If he could have described his forebodings at all, he would have said they were more or less connected with the King, — but how or why, he would not have been able to explain, save that since the death of Lotys, his Sovereign master had no longer looked the same man. Stricken as with a blight, and grown suddenly old, his manner and appearance were as of one devoured by a secret despair, — a corroding disease, — of which the end could only be disastrous. Overcome by the pain and distress of being the constant witness of a sorrow which he felt to the heart, yet could not relieve, the Professor, on returning from the scene of Lotys’s impressive funeral, had put ashore on The Islands, instead of going back to the mainland. He had sought permission from the King to remain with Ronsard for the night, — and the permission had been readily, almost eagerly granted. The King, indeed, had seemed glad to be relieved of the too anxious solicitude of his physician, who, he knew, was well aware of the concealed agony of mind which tortured and well-nigh maddened him, — and the Professor, keenly observant, was equally conscious that, under the immediate circumstances, his attendance might seem more of an intrusion than a duty.
“De Launay was not far wrong when he prophesied danger for the King as the result of his beginning to think for himself;” he mused— “Yet it has come — this danger — in a different way to that in which we expected it! It is a bold move
for the ruler of a country to make personal examination into the needs of his people, — but it is seldom that, while engaged in such a task, the ruler himself becomes ruled, by a stronger force than even his own temporal power!”
And now, sitting with old Réné Ronsard, by a fire which had been kindled on this somewhat chilly night for his better comfort, he was, despite the impression of sadness and disaster which hung upon his mind as darkly as the clouds were hanging in heaven, doing his best to rouse both himself and his companion to greater cheerfulness. The wind, shaking the lattice, and now and then screaming dismally under the door, did not inspire him to gaiety, but his thoughts were principally for Ronsard, who was inclined to yield to an overpowering despondency.
“This will never do, Ronsard!” he said after a pause, during which he had noticed a tear or two steal slowly down the old man’s furrowed cheek; “What sort of a welcome will such a face as yours be to our Crown Princess Gloria? She will soon be here; think of it! And what a triumphant entry she will make, acclaimed by the whole nation!”
“I shall not be wanted in her life!” said Ronsard, slowly. “After all, I am nothing to her, and have no claim upon her. I found her, as a poor man may by chance find a rare jewel, — that the jewel is afterwards found worthy to be set in a king’s crown, is not the business of that same poor man. He who merely hews a diamond out of the mine, is not the maker of the diamond!”
“Gloria loves you!” said the Professor; “And she will love you always!”
Ronsard smiled faintly.
“My friend, I understand, and I accept the law of change!” he said. “To me, as to all, it must come! The old must die, and the young succeed them. As for me, I shall be glad to go — the sooner the better, I truly think, for then none will taunt my Gloria with the simple manner of her bringing up; — none will remember aught, save her exceeding beauty, or blame her that the sun and sea were her only known parents. And if we credit legend, hers is not the first birth of loveliness from the bosom of the waves!”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 580