Part 40 (1/2)

The whole performance turned out on investigation to have been so feeble and amateurish that suspicion rapidly descended from the more experienced pract.i.tioners of anarchy, imported from other countries, to home-products of later growth--strikers made desperate and savage by the recent sentences upon their leaders, or, as some would have it, the Women Chartists, hoping by an attack upon royalty to bring a neglectful ministry to its senses. As there were no real clues except those which industriously led nowhere and which the police seemed delightedly to follow, everybody was free to lay the charge against any agitating section of the community which they happened to regard with special disfavor; and for that reason the Women Chartists did, in fact, get most of the blame.

But in the process they also reaped a certain advantage; the mere suspicion, though malice directed it, was good for them. Had it been possible to convict them, their cause would have gone down for another generation; but there was really nothing to catch hold of, and the power of any organization to commit such an outrage without being detected--to break the gla.s.s of the King's coach and make the eight piebald ponies rise up on end in horror--was a power which raised them greatly in the eyes of all law-abiding people; it suggested an unknown potency for mischief far more ominous than had discovery and conviction followed.

And so, while squibs and crackers were being thrown at them and sham bombs hurled into their meetings to show how greatly the law-abiding people of Jingalo disapproved of them for incurring such suspicion--politically, the unjustly suspected ones moved a little nearer to their goal.

As for the King and Queen, they were simply inundated with telegrams and letters of congratulation. In many instances the loyalty shown was extraordinarily touching: one instance will suffice. Every schoolboy in every public school in Jingalo contributed a penny from his pocket money to a congratulatory telegram sent in the name of the school; and when, as sometimes happened, the school numbered over six hundred boys the telegram had necessarily to be lengthy, and proved a severe tax upon the literary ability of its senders.

Amid all this influx--this pa.s.sionate outpouring of loyalty to a King who had stood only a few days before within an ace of abdication, there were of course messages of a more intimate and personal kind. Every crowned head in Europe had written with that fellow-feeling which on such occasions royalty is bound to express. ”I know what it is like myself,” wrote one who had had six attempts made on him; ”but I have never had it done to me from behind. How very devastating to the nerves that must be!” The Prince of Schnapps-Wa.s.ser wired that he could find no language to express himself, but hoped in a few weeks' time to come and show all that he felt. Max after a brief wire had flown back to town; and his obvious perturbation and demonstrative affection had made it a happy meeting.

But, while all these messages flowed, there was one inexplicable silence. Charlotte neither wrote nor telegraphed; nor did she return home. That portent dawned upon their Majesties as they breakfasted late the next morning with correspondence and telegrams piled up beside them.

”What can have become of Charlotte?” cried the Queen. ”She must _know_!”

”If she knew, she would be here,” said the King, confident in his daughter's affection.

They stared at each other in a surmise which turned gradually to dismay.

This unfilial silence upon their escape from the bomb of the a.s.sa.s.sin told them with staggering certainty that Charlotte was missing.

”She has run away!” cried the Queen.

”But she must be somewhere,” objected the King; ”and wherever she is she would surely have heard the news.”

”She may be quite out in the country,” suggested the Queen, picking up hope.

”Still she has friends who must know where she has gone.”

”It's incredible!” cried her Majesty; ”heartless, I call it.”

”No, no, she simply doesn't know!” said the King; of that he was quite certain. ”We are sure to hear from her in the course of the day,” he continued rea.s.suringly, ”meanwhile we shall have to make inquiries.”

But the day went on, and no sign from Charlotte; nor did inquiries bring definite news up to date. She had arrived with her expectant hostess on the day appointed; but after staying only one night had gone elsewhere, and from that point in place and time no trace of her was to be found.

Before the day was over the King and Queen had become terribly anxious, and by the end of the week they were almost at their wits' end.

And here we get yet another instance of the drawbacks and dangers which attend upon royalty. Had Charlotte belonged to any ordinary rank of life, it could have been announced that she was missing; her description could have been issued to the press, and search for her made reasonably effective. But, as things were, this could not be done, Charlotte was impulsive and did indiscreet things; and until one knew exactly what it portended, to publish her disappearance to all the world would have been too rash and sudden a proceeding. Once that was done there could be no hus.h.i.+ng up of the matter; all Jingalo, nay, all Europe, would have to hear of it, including, of course, the Prince of Schnapps-Wa.s.ser; and so, at all costs of private strain and anxiety, it was necessary to conceal as long as possible that the Princess was not where she ought to be, and was perhaps where she ought not to be.

Now please, do not let my readers at this point think that it was Charlotte who had thrown the bomb. Even for the sake of literary effect, I would not for one moment deceive them. It was not Charlotte; Charlotte had nothing to do with it, and did not even know of it. And yet--I will give them for a while this small problem to grapple with--Charlotte was quite well, was in possession of all her senses, was thoroughly enjoying herself, and was not outside the land of her inheritance. Most emphatically she had not run away.

And there for the moment we will leave the matter, and attend to things more important.

II

The King had caught sight in the newspaper of something which annoyed him very much; annoyed him all the more because it seemed to betoken that the moment his abdication was withdrawn the old ministerial encroachments on the royal prerogative had begun again.

”We are officially informed,” so ran the paragraph, ”that the Minister of the Interior has advised his Majesty to grant a reprieve to the three strike leaders now lying under sentence of death for their part in the recent riots and police murders. It is understood that the sentences will be commuted to penal servitude for life.”

And this was the first the King had heard of it!

He sent at once for the Home Minister; and within an hour that great official stood before him.