Читать книгу Sir John Constantine - Arthur Quiller-Couch - Страница 11

"Do you know him?" asked my uncle.

"Well—er—no; I can't honestly declare that I know him; but, of course, one knows of him—that is to say, I understand him to be a gentleman of title; a knight at least."

"Yes," my uncle answered, "he is at least that. What a very extraordinary person!" he added in a wondering aside.

Oddly enough, as we were leaving, I heard the woman Nan say pretty much the same of my uncle. She added that she had a great mind to kiss him.

We found my father and the prisoner seated with the bottle between them on the rickety liquor-stained table. Yet—as I remember the scene now—not all the squalor of the room could efface or diminish the majesty of their two figures. They sat like two tall old kings, eye to eye, not friends, or reconciled only in this last and lonely hour by meditation on man's common fate. If I cannot make you understand this, what follows will seem to you absurd, though indeed at the time it was not so.

My father rose as we entered. "Here is the boy returned," said he; "and here are the witnesses."

The prisoner rose also. "I did not catch his name, or else I have forgotten it," he said, fixing his eyes on me and motioning me to step forward; which I did. His eyes—which before had seemed to me shifty—were straight now and commanding, yet benevolent.

"His name is Prosper; in full, John Prosper Camilio Paleologus. Never more than one of us wears the surname of Constantine, and he not until he succeeds as head of our house."

"One name is enough for a king." The prisoner motioned again with his hand. "Kneel, boy," my father commanded, and I knelt.

"I ask you, gentlemen," said the prisoner, facing them and lifting his voice, "to hear and remember what I shall say; to witness and remember what I shall do; and by signature to attest what I shall presently write. I say, then, that I, Theodore, was on the fifteenth of April, twenty years ago, by the united voice of the people of Corsica, made King of that island and placed in possession of its revenues and chief dignities. I declare, as God may punish me if I lie, that by no act of mine or of my people of Corsica has that election been annulled, forfeited, or invalidated; that its revenues are to-day rightfully mine to receive and bequeath, as its dignities are to-day rightfully mine to enjoy or abdicate to an heir of my own choosing. I declare further that, failing male issue of my own body, I resign herewith and abdicate both rank and revenue in favour of this boy, Prosper Paleologus, son of Constantine, and heir in descent of Constantine last Emperor of Constantinople. I lay my hands on him in your presence and bless him. In your presence I raise him and salute him on both cheeks, naming him my son of choice and my successor, Prosper I., King of the Commonwealth of Corsica. I call on you all to attest this act with your names, and all necessary writings confirming it; and I beseech you all to pray with me that he may come to the full inheritance of his kingdom, and thrive therein as he shall justly and righteously administer it. God save King Prosper!"

At the conclusion of this speech, admirably delivered, I—standing with bent head as he had raised me, and with both cheeks tingling from his salutation—heard my father's voice say sonorously, "Amen!" and another—I think the parson's—break into something like a chuckle. But my uncle must have put out a hand threatening his weasand, for the sound very suddenly gave place to silence; and the next voice I heard was Mr. Knox's.

"May I suggest that we seat ourselves and examine the papers?" said

Mr. Knox.

"One moment." King Theodore stepped to the cupboard and drew out a bundle in a blue-and-white checked kerchief, and a smaller one in brown paper. The kerchief, having been laid on the table and unwrapped, disclosed a fantastic piece of ironwork in the shape of a crown, set with stones of which the preciousness was concealed by a plentiful layer of dust. He lifted this, set it on my head for a moment, and, replacing it on the table, took up the brown-paper parcel.

"This," said he, "contains the Great Seal. To whose keeping "—he turned to my father—"am I to entrust them, Sir John?"

My father nodded towards Billy Priske, who stepped forward and tucked both parcels under his arm, while Mr. Knox spread his papers on the table.

We walked back to our lodgings that afternoon, with Billy Priske behind us bearing in his pocket the Great Seal and under his arm, in a checked kerchief, the Iron Crown of Corsica.

Two mornings later we took horse and set our faces westward again; and thus ended my brief first visit to London. Billy Priske carried the sacred parcel on the saddle before him; and my uncle, riding beside him, spent no small part of the way in an exhortation against lying in general, and particularly against the sin of laying false claim to the paternity of twelve children.

Now, so shaken was Billy by his one adventure in London that until we had passed the tenth milestone he seemed content enough to be rated. I believe that as, for the remainder of his stay in London, he had never strayed beyond sight, so even yet he took comfort and security from my uncle's voice; "since," said he, quoting a Cornish proverb, "'tis better be rated by your own than mated with a stranger." But, by-and-by, taking courage to protest that a lie might on occasion be pardonable and even necessary, he drew my father into the discussion.

"This difficulty of Billy's," interposed my father, "was in some sort anticipated by Plato, who instanced that a madman with a knife in his hand might inquire of you to direct him which way had been taken by the victim he proposed to murder. He posits it as a nice point. Should one answer truthfully, or deceive?"

"For my part," answered my uncle, "I should knock him down."