Chapter XXIV: The Denunciation and the Retribution

Radcliffe awoke the next morning with a dull feeling of anxiety oppressing him. The thrilling episodes of the fight, the loss of Tom, the decision of Abercromby, all these had, for a while, driven away the dominant thought of his heart, but with the first moment of quiet leisure it returned with unabated intensity.

Lilian was in the palace, and yet he could not see her nor obtain tidings of her. Dismissing the attendants who waited on him (for he already tasted the luxuries of the Atalantan nobility), he sought and obtained an interview with Melanitis.

“Even now,” he said, “I do not fully know your customs, and in these trying circumstances I may be guilty of a great social mistake; but I entreat you to tell me when this suspense will be over and my wife restored to me, whom I have so long looked upon as dead.”

“I will do all I can to hasten your wishes,” she answered, “for I desire it no less than you do; but there are two things that must come first--the trial of Lydon and his fellow-traitors, and the burial of the honoured dead according to the customs of Atalanta. The trial will be held to-morrow; for the King’s sake it will be hastened, for his health makes Mexitli very anxious, while the burial of the honoured dead will follow very quickly. You will never forget the sight so long as you live.”

“Permit me to render to you my grateful and loving thanks for the act of yours which saved my life. Not even the healing of my sorrow which you have promised to me can efface the recollection that I owe my life to you.”

“Mexitli did just what I did, but her anxiety lest she should do you hurt prevented her from doing it effectually. I had no such fear, because I am more practised. Surely to save a fellow-creature’s life is what any human being would be proud to do.”

Radcliffe stood silent. How _could_ she be more practised in the use of a Karamandran weapon? Was there not also a measure of coldness in her tone? Not to be wondered at, he thought. As he stood hesitating she cut the knot herself.

“I have much to occupy me to-day,” she said, “so you will excuse my detaining you further.”

“Have I given unwitting offence?”

“Not in the least--how could you?”

Radcliffe left the apartment. As he did so, he encountered Frank in very earnest conversation with Mexitli and Mayana. They smiled on him, but he went on to the terrace and walked about wrapped in thought. Cleophon was there, watching the ruins of the tower of the arsenal, and Minya, his sister-in-law, was with him. They greeted Radcliffe warmly, and had a long talk over the recent explosion and the tactics of the rebels which had brought it about. Suddenly two ideas struck Radcliffe all at once, and he said--

“Was any one killed by the explosion?”

“Two of the guards standing as sentries,” answered Cleophon.

“How many prisoners are there in the palace?”

“Lydon and his associates,” replied Minya. “Three men, that is to say. There are no women prisoners. We did all the killing and they did the sinning, and they are, and will yet be, doing the suffering.”

“That is an admirable assortment of parts,” answered Cleophon dryly, “and methinks our excellent friend and colleague is quite satisfied with it.”

“Perfectly satisfied, since there are no ladies imprisoned,” said Radcliffe.

Minya gave utterance to a ringing laugh.

“You will soon be one of us in every thought and feeling,” she said.

In the meantime Abercromby had persuaded Carmichael and the engineer to lay their writing aside and to come for a walk with him. The others agreeing, they went to a sheltered garden attached to the palace on the southern slope of the mount, and Abercromby gave them a startling piece of information.

“I have had a talk with Lydon himself,” he said. “Our interview was hardly amicable, for he cursed me at least a dozen times, but I wormed a state secret out of him, which has led me to advise Mexitli and her intimate friends not to make the approaching trial public, but to try him in the King’s private apartment, with only selected witnesses--ourselves, of course.”

“You are a pretty fellow,” said the engineer; “Mexitli hardly wants coaching up in these medieval ideas. I thought you were an Englishman, but I am afraid your prolonged residence in the Love Star has not improved you.”

“As Lydon is certain to be put to death, it will not make any difference to him.”

“That Mexitli will finish his goose, as the Americans express it, I don’t doubt,” said Carysfort; “but I tell you plainly I do not like this sort of thing.”

“He used violent language and threats that he would say that which would stagger the whole kingdom, and pay Malchon out for all he owed him. Could I do less than tell Mexitli of this? She is not going to stop his tongue, she only wants the man in the street not to hear it, and then pass it on with amplifications.”

“Has his death been settled on beforehand?” grunted the Professor.

“It won’t be nice according to European notions, I am afraid. To be quite candid, however, I have managed to change the manner of it. The princess and Mayana were for giving him a cup of tea, or something equivalent, for his next meal; but Melanitis begged hard that they would postpone their intention, and I joined in with her. Now I have got an idea that she will regret she did not let them have their way. But be this as it may, or rather as it will, I did have just _one_ shudder when Mexitli produced a small phial of amber-coloured liquid and showed it to Mayana. They seemed to be pretty well posted up in the Lucretia Borgia business, and I ventured the remark that I should have to take care how I behaved myself.”

“I agree with you,” said Carysfort, “and I hope it may have the effect of making you reconsider a recent decision. What did they say?”

“That it was for reptiles like Lydon to fear them, not for loyal hearts and true like me.”

“Excellent for the time being,” answered Carmichael, “but what about the years to come?”

* * * * *

At ten a.m. measured by earthly time, Malchon lay upon his sick couch in the private room of his palace, where more secret trials took place. By his side were Mexitli and Melanitis, while Mayana and Minya sat a little way apart. Radcliffe and Abercromby were next to the princesses, while Carmichael and Carysfort were placed nearest to Mayana and Minya.

A very weary look was on the old King’s face; the recent events had sadly undermined his strength. Abercromby, strange to say, seemed the most agitated person in the whole company. Radcliffe was quiet and composed--a trifle bored, in fact. _His_ thoughts were far away.

Presently the tramp of footsteps was heard in the adjacent corridor, and the high priest was led in, his hands tightly bound behind him. Cleito and Arniphon stood on either side of the prisoner. The face of Lydon was agitated by the stormiest passions, but he kept himself well controlled. His tall, majestic figure seemed to exercise a dominating force.

“Mexitli, my daughter, matters are in your hand,” said Malchon. “I can take but a silent part. My days are numbered, and I would fain be at rest.”

The princess turned to Radcliffe.

“_You_ shall indict him,” she said. “His deeds are notorious; you need but say a very few words.”

With a strange mixture of dread foreboding, and yet of dignified responsibility, Radcliffe spoke:--

“Lydon, high priest of Asti, to me has this task been assigned. It is, as the princess truly says, needless to dwell upon it at length. As the minister of a better and purer faith than yours, I will not (lest I should be thought to speak from self-interest) accuse you of idolatry and superstition, though I fear you have made a bad use of the religious influence you have so long exercised. I accuse you the rather of treason against the throne and the royal house of Atalanta, both by machinations in secret, and at last by an open outbreak of rebellion, whereby the King’s declining days have been embittered by strife and bloodshed, and many of his loyal subjects slain.”

“You can now say that in private which you threatened to say in public,” said Mexitli. “You may freely speak, for this is the last time the opportunity will be granted.”

“I understand well the true nature of the words which have been spoken,” answered the high priest; “my heart fails me not, my courage does not shrink. When I _have_ spoken, it is my enemies who will be covered with confusion and with shame, while _I_ shall go to the doom appointed with the knowledge that the Sun God will not fail his servant in the hour of death.

“Malchon, King of Atalanta, if indeed it be a King that thou art, seven years ago you wrestled in prayer for the life of your child Melanitis. You, kneeling in the Sun God’s Temple, didst presume to address another God than He, and didst utter words alike sacrilegious and evil. They were that this God of thine must needs grant thy request, and that thou wouldst be well content, provided only that Melanitis should recover, that she should bring sorrow upon thine own heart, and shame upon thy native land. Thy prayer has been heard, Malchon, and this day thou shalt know to the full what thou hast done.

“She, whom thou dost _call_ Melanitis, is a Karamandran at heart; she careth not for thee, nor for the interests of Atalanta. She is not the Melanitis thou didst love in the days of old, but one as different as these men who come from another world differ from the men and women of thine.”

He paused. Throughout the apartment the silence was intense. Abercromby leaned eagerly forward; a puzzled look crept over the faces of the Professor and Carysfort. Not even yet did Clarence Radcliffe evince excitement or interest--he had heard the story before. Mexitli and Mayana remained impassive and inscrutable; the King folded his weak hands with an air of weary resignation. Melanitis alone had turned very deadly white.

“Courage, child, courage, all is forgiven,” whispered Mexitli.

“I see before me a little house,” pursued Lydon, “in a sheltered bay in Karamandra. The sun is shining upon the sea. In the small guest-room a man and a woman are standing; they are at variance one with another. The woman has ceased to love the man as she did but a few weeks ago, though she had promised to do so for ever. Verily _I_ will be no judge between them!

“I see before me a river with a boat making its way upstream. Two women are in it--both young, both handsome, as beauty is reckoned in their silly world. The face of one is flushed, excited, reckless; she takes the oar, not knowing properly how to use it. Soon a rock appears in mid-stream, there is a crash, the boat is overturned, both are caught in the eddying current. One barely saves her own humdrum life, the other sinks. As the waters pass over her and she is engulfed, her spirit perceives one by her side who bids her follow him to the Mansions of the Blest. Such is not her desire. ‘Clarence! Clarence!’ she cries, ‘I will go to no land where you are not. I would refuse even heaven for you!’ ‘Go, then, where thou shalt one day find him,’ is the solemn answer, ‘and tarry for him a long time, and tarry a still longer time for the home that I would have led thee to. Thou wouldst resist the will of thy Maker and defy His appointed hour; for thy punishment thou shalt do so, and weep bitter tears.’ A rush and a roar seemed to drown all her senses, and when her eyes opened she was a hapless stranger in a strange and wondrous land.

“And now, Clarence Radcliffe, look around and behold thy wife. Thou hast filled Atalanta with thy whimpering complaints, perceiving not that it was thine own folly that set in motion this long train of evils. Behold her, I say, and rejoice, as best thou mayest, in the sight!”

“Why have you torn open a bleeding wound?” said Radcliffe passionately. “Where is the Lilian that I once loved so well, whose memory I cherish still?”

“Turn, fool, turn and see her; she is sufficiently betraying herself,” thundered Lydon. “There stands before you May Lilian Radcliffe, a Karamandran spirit in an Atalantan body!”

Radcliffe advanced a step towards Melanitis; she stretched out her appealing hands, and burst forth in the words of Anglo-Saxon love, which Clarence had sent to her in the world across the sky--

“One dearest vision flashed upon my way,
Kindling the memories of Love’s sacred past;
That vision _now_ is all my strength and stay,
While yet the lingering hours of exile last!”

With a wild cry Radcliffe clasped Melanitis in his arms.

“Behold them!” shouted the deep voice of Lydon; “behold the two serpents of Karamandra! Each has found the other. Each stands prepared to wreck a world that their ill-starred love may riot over its ruins!

“O Malchon, understand the truth even in thy dotage! The child of thine heart was taken from thee seven years ago to dwell with Asti in his palace of solar glory, while into the vacant bodily tenement crept this _thing_ from Karamandra, a cursed gift from a sin-stained planet.”

Carmichael and Carysfort had both risen, but they sank back in their seats with awestruck and blanched faces.

A deep groan burst from the lips of Malchon. His head fell upon the couch. He said not a word.

“Behold thy victory! hireling of a new religion,” Lydon shouted in a voice of ever-increasing bitterness. “Take to thy arms this stranger to thee; see if there be any resemblance in her pale foreign face to the love of the long ago. Ha! ha! A new courtship shalt thou have in this land of ours, and two dialects in which to pursue it.”

Radcliffe found his tongue at last. With one arm encircling Melanitis, he confronted Lydon and waved him imperiously aside.

“Had I found her with all her beauty marred and gone, had I visited her in the deepest dungeon, had I met with her an exile in a desert island, she would be (as indeed she is) the one and only queen of my heart. It _is_ a harder and more severe trial than all these things, to look upon the foreign face, even though it be fairer than the very fairest of my own world. Yet love can rise superior to every hindrance, can overcome every obstacle, else it were vain to talk of immortality. This is how I meet thy difficulties, this is how love prevails over thy logic.”

“Thou hast finely spoken, O man of Karamandra,” jeered Lydon. “Thy rustic wife of old is now a princess, and a throne is a potent solace to the trials of a foreign face.”

“Not when the wife sits upon a throne, and the husband is far beneath; not when she has power and he no power, save only to carry on his mission; not when she is great and he is small.”

“A truce to this peddling matter,” answered Lydon sternly. “Once again I call upon you in the name of Asti my God, to renounce your impious design to change the faith of Atalanta. Do what you will with _me_, but let not the Sun God shine upon an apostate land.”

“Had I but loved my Saviour as I loved my wife, we might, both at this moment, be fulfilling a lowly divine ministry in our own world; but _now_ we will do the one thing left to us; we will walk hand in hand together, to be a help and a benefit to the world wherein we are.”

“I give you my consent and my blessing,” murmured the King in a broken voice. “God and the Prince of Heaven shall be honoured and adored, and none else. And now, my son Radcliffe, the time will not be long for me. Soon, very soon, I shall go to the land of which He whom we once coldly banished told us, a land where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary are at rest.”

“I have _one_ thing more to do,” cried Lydon, in a voice hoarse with rage. “The Sun God has been publicly repudiated here in my presence, and his wrath must now fall upon the blasphemer who has come amongst us. O Asti, strengthen me only this once that I thy unworthy servant may perform one last sacrifice in thy name!”

Bowing forward, with a supreme effort he snapped his bonds, and in a bound was upon Clarence and Melanitis. But Malchon sprang from his couch and interposed his aged body as a shield. Something glittered in Lydon’s hand ere his arm could be arrested in its downward swoop. Malchon fell forward; he uttered one faint cry; they just caught the words, “Let the Prince be King,” and all was over.

“A greater retribution has fallen,” shouted the high priest. “I swore to be avenged. Behold, all of you, the sacrificial knife; see, it is red, red to the hilt. Asti is honoured. Come, therefore--I wait my long-appointed doom; do your worst with me. Asti, I come! I come!”

A sharp report echoed through the room. Lydon fell dead at his victim’s feet. Minola was risen, holding one of the pistols from the Asteroid in her hand.

“He shut up my father in his Temple prison,” she said quietly. “He let him die of starvation, because he would not sacrifice to his idol. I place myself in Queen Mexitli’s hands. I have repaid.”

“You need not be forgiven, dear, for there is nothing to forgive,” answered the Queen elect. “You have only completed the sacrifice. I had meant something appallingly worse for him, but I thank you for having made it unnecessary.”

Then she knelt down by her father’s side, and the tears fell fast. Presently she looked up and said--

“Go, my friends, and take rest after all these horrors. You have nothing but a true friend in me. Cleito! Arniphon! take the body of that traitor and hurl it over the parapet of the terrace!”