A CROWN OF STRAW

A CROWN OF STRAW

BY ALLEN UPWARD AUTHOR OF “THE QUEEN AGAINST OWEN,” “THE PRINCE OF BALKISTAN,” ETC.

NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1896

Copyright, 1896, By Dodd, Mead and Company. University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A.

PREFACE

The term novel has been made to cover books of such diverse character, now-a-days, that the reader is almost entitled to demand of a novelist that he shall affix some distinct label to the book he is putting forth, and make it clear beforehand whether his work is a dialogue on religion, a satire on morals, a political tract, a study in slum life, or a mere romance. This consideration must serve as my excuse for saying a few words about the ideas which have guided me in writing the present work; although I shall incur the danger of a comparison between the moon at which I have aimed, and the humble tree which I have hit.

In this story, then, as in some others which I have written, or am writing, I have sought to embody the romance of contemporary history. It cannot be true that one age or country is in reality more poetical than any other; the difference, if any, must be that it requires a little more imagination[vi] to perceive the romance which lies around us, than that which is ready gathered for us in the pages of the historian. If it be said that some of the greatest masters have gone to past times for their inspiration, their disciple may perhaps allege that as a reason for not venturing into the well-trodden ground. But in fact many of the books which have been most admired in the class of what are called historical novels have owed a part of their charm to the flavour of antiquity which their accomplished writers have contrived to impart to them by mannerisms of style and by the copious use of historical allusion. However great the attraction of such writing may be, it must not be forgotten that the greatest, perhaps the first, of historical romancers—I

mean Shakespeare—relied upon no such artifices, but on the intrinsic interest of his themes and his dramatic presentation of them. Neither is it the antiquarian taste which is appealed to by such a book as the “Three Musketeers.” It may even be affirmed, on the other hand, that the interest with which stories are thus invested is essentially false, and foreign to the story-teller’s art.

The keen pleasure with which the historical scholar reads the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey” is the accidental result of time, and certainly never[vii] entered into the aims of the composer or compiler of those works. The novels of Emile Zola may similarly fascinate the student in years to come, because he will feel that the manners they record are genuine. But with what confidence can he regard the Wardour Street properties which bulk so largely in the novels of some modern writers? Unless these books tell stories whose interest is independent of adventitious attraction, assuredly they will not continue to be read.

The true aim of the artist in fiction must always be to describe an interesting action,—the Greeks would have said, a great action. The characters which still live for us in fiction are those which their creators have revealed to us through their actions. The analytical novel of character, as it is termed, bears the same relation to true romance as the surgeon’s anatomical model bears to a portrait of Velasquez. It is the business of the story-teller to produce, not a photograph of one who sits in a chair, but a kinetoscope, with every limb in motion. The analytical novelist, when he has written his analytical novel, should regard it as merely a preparatory study, and should tear it up and then write a real novel in which the characters so carefully analysed will by their movements disclose[viii] all those traits of which their creator has laboured to convince himself.

This is why the play is greater than the novel. The playwright—robbed of his Chorus—cannot inflict upon us these tedious dissertations, he cannot leave his persons standing about idly on the stage, while he lectures to us on their inner nature as revealed to his Röntgen vision. The story told in these pages was conceived by the author as the subject of a play. The only reason it appears in the guise of a novel is because, when it was written, the author had no acquaintance with theatrical managers, and a play written merely to be read in a book has always appeared to him a monstrosity. He therefore reconstructed his romance, making such alterations as seemed needful when the characters were no longer visible of themselves, and when, moreover, he was debarred from that crowding of circumstance, that rush and climax of events, which the stage demands and justifies, but which on the written page would seem abrupt and harsh.

Most readers will trace in the hero of this book a resemblance to a certain king whose fate attracted attention not so very many years ago. I would ask that the comparison shall be carried no farther. This book is in no sense taken[ix] from history. All that I have intended to do has been to conceive a romantic interpretation for a tragical event, and to set forth that interpretation as a story to be read for its own sake, if at all.

A. U.

PROLOGUE

I THE LOADING OF THE PISTOL

In the inner room of a small, dimly lighted house, half hidden behind the dark walls of the arsenal of Stuttgart, in Germany, a group of three men were occupied in loading a pistol.

Their method of proceeding was singular. They were seated around a small deal table which stood at the far end of the room from the door. On the table was a small open lamp, and the dirty yellow flame which struggled upwards from its untrimmed wick flared upon the faces of the three, and brought them into pallid relief against the surrounding shadow. As the sickly light wandered off into the corners of the bare, gloomy room, it revealed the obscure form of a fourth man, younger than any of the first three, who sat by himself on a bench next to the door.

The group engaged in loading the pistol, absorbed in their task, took no notice of their comrade, who watched them with brooding eyes as they bent their heads together across the table, or spoke to each other[2] in low whispers from time to time. Once or twice he turned his head and gazed abstractedly at the door. It was locked; and the high, narrow window at the opposite end of the chamber was closely shuttered and barred.

The leader of the party, a man whose grey hairs and deeply wrinkled face showed him to be by many years the eldest of the four, had commenced the proceedings by opening a small wooden case which lay on the table between the three, and taking out the pistol, which he first carefully examined, and then handed silently to the man seated next to him.

This man, a burly giant, with tremendous red whiskers and beard, in which his face was almost concealed, caught at the pistol with a grunt of satisfaction. In his huge grasp the weapon looked like a toy, as he held it up to the light, glanced down the barrel, and snapped the trigger. At this sound the youth by the door started ever so slightly, and a frown contracted his brows. Then the red-bearded giant passed on the pistol to the last of the three.

“Here, Johann,” he remarked in low tones, “see if you can find anything wrong with it.”

The man addressed as Johann, who appeared much younger than either of his companions, received the pistol in silence, as silently turned it over, and passed it back to the old man.

The pistol was of old-fashioned make, and had but a single barrel. Evidently it was only meant to fire one shot.

[3]While the others were handling it, the leader had gone on with his preparations. From the small wooden case already mentioned he had taken out a small powder-flask, a wad, a short steel ramrod, and a bullet. To these he added an ordinary percussion-cap, and last of all came a bar of black sealing-wax, and a curious narrow stick tipped with a steel button. On this button a cipher of some kind appeared to be engraved.

Having ranged these articles on the table before himself and his comrades, the old man received back the pistol, and proceeded to load it at the muzzle from the powder-flask. Slowly the stream of black salt trickled out, sprinkling its course with tiny sparks of light, as the sharp-edged particles caught and flashed back the glow from the sputtering lamp. Then the weapon again changed hands, and the man with the red beard fitted in the wad, and vigorously rammed it home.

This done, he handed the pistol again to Johann, with the whispered exclamation, “Now for the sugar-plum!”

His younger comrade took it from him as quietly as before, dropped in the bullet, and returned the weapon once more to the senior of the three.

All this time the young man by the door had neither moved nor spoken. A faint shiver which passed through his frame when the bullet tinkled against the edge of the barrel alone told that he was keenly alive to what was going forward.

Now came the remarkable part of the ceremony. As soon as the old man got possession of the pistol for the[4] third time, he rose solemnly to his feet, and taking up the bar of sealing-wax, ignited it over the naked flame of the lamp. As the wax hissed and flared up, he brought it directly over the upright muzzle of the pistol, allowing the burning drops to fall right down the barrel. The next moment he dropped the bar of sealing-wax, and seizing the narrow rod already described, plunged it down the barrel, and sealed the bullet firmly in its place.

The giant, who had watched this operation with the closest attention, now took the pistol once more, and completed the work of preparation by fitting on the percussion-cap, over which he allowed the hammer to close down.

All being ready, Johann received the loaded weapon in his hands, while the fourth member of the party rose from his seat beside the door, and advanced at a given signal towards the others.

“Don’t be afraid, Karl,” said the big man good-naturedly, as he caught sight of his young comrade’s face. “The pistol has not been loaded for you.”

The two others frowned at this remark, and the elder man held up his hand in rebuke.

“Hush! Our brother is right to feel afraid—afraid lest the sealed bullet should fail to reach its mark.” And he thoughtfully scanned the young man’s features, now looking almost livid in the wan glow of the lamp.

Meanwhile the other young man had risen to his feet. Holding the mysterious weapon in his hand, he put the following question to his comrade:—

[5]“Brother, the lot has chosen you to fire this pistol. Are you ready to take it, and carry out the instructions you will receive?”

“I am,” came in husky tones from the youth.

He put out a shaking hand, and received the pistol from Johann.

Then the elder man pulled out a drawer in the table, took out a piece of paper, wrote on it a single word of seven letters, and handed it to the man with the red beard.

He glanced at it amid a dead silence, nodded his head, and passed it on to Johann, who by this time had sat down again. He read the word with a grim smile, and returned the paper to the leader of the party.

The old man solemnly folded up the paper, sealed it with the cipher already used for the bullet, and placed it in the hands of the giant.

It was now his turn to rise and address the agitated Karl.

“Here are your instructions. Do you undertake to return here, if you are alive and free, at the end of three months, and give an account of your mission?”

“I do.”

This time it was little more than a hoarse whisper which came from the young man.

The others appeared satisfied.

The old man arose, and moving out from behind the table, went up to the youth and gave him a solemn embrace.

The good-natured giant followed, and took advantage[6] of the opportunity to whisper in his comrade’s ear—

“Keep up a good heart, my boy; and if you want help, rely on us.”

Then Johann made a step forward, but stopped short.

He was interrupted by an unexpected sound.

The noise of hurrying feet was heard in the passage outside, and was instantly followed by a succession of low distinct taps on the bottom panel of the door.

The four men simultaneously raised their heads and exchanged glances of inquiry and alarm. Only on the face of one of them, he who held the sealed weapon beneath his dress, was the look of dread chequered by a faint expression of relief.

The next moment Johann moved towards the door.

II THE SEALED INSTRUCTIONS

The word written inside the sealed paper was a name.

The name was Leopold.

Who was this Leopold—and for what cause had his name come to figure so ominously in these surroundings? To-day he is forgotten; the whole of Europe rang then with the name of Leopold IX., the wicked King of Franconia.

A few words as to this personage will serve to throw[7] light on the more recent events with which this story is concerned.

The race from which he sprang has long held an evil renown upon the Continent. For more than a century a dark cloud has overshadowed the royal line of Astolf. A mysterious taint in the blood has broken out time after time in the Franconian princes, betraying itself in wild freaks and excesses, which are rather whispered of than named. A monotonous chronicle of madness and crime makes up the gloomy annals of the House.

Something of this doubtless has been due to the peculiar character of their sovereignty. While smaller kingdoms, with narrower resources, have played an independent part on the European stage, Franconia, hampered by its position in the great Germanic body, has remained a petty State, compelled to be a mere satellite in the train of one of the two great monarchies which have contended for the dominion of Germany. In former ages her kings had received ambassadors, and their alliance had been alternately courted by Austria and France. To-day, closely enswathed in the iron bonds of Prussia’s military empire, the Franconian kingdom has ceased to have an international existence. In the eyes of diplomacy she is no better than a province of the Kaiser’s dominions, and in the council of nations her voice is no longer heard.

Yet within their own borders the kings of Franconia continue to be supreme. Deprived of their authority in the great questions of peace and war, in all matters of local interest they rule their kingdom with an independent[8] sway. It would even seem as though the peculiar relations between them and the Imperial Government had added to the security of their throne. It would require no ordinary degree of misgovernment to provoke a rebellion whose success must mean the extinction of Franconian nationality, and its final subjection to the formidable Prussian yoke.

Their situation resembles that of those satraps who reign with absolute power over the provinces of Oriental empires. The difference is that they are irremovable, and hand on their dominion to their heirs.

To the intoxication of despotism add the intoxication of security. The strongest brain will reel under such pressure. History recalls the line of maniacs who slew and wantoned in Imperial Rome.

In modern Europe a bloodthirsty despot has become an impossibility. A king no longer dares to kill his subjects for the pleasure of it. All that has been put an end to by a glorious invention of the physicians. They have invented the word monomania, a tremendous exorcism, the mere utterance of which reduces the most powerful monarch to impotence, scares away his courtiers, paralyses the arms of his guards, and tears him from his throne to bury him behind iron doors.

It was with this spell that their bewildered subjects had fought the kings of Franconia for the last two generations. There was only one man in the kingdom more powerful than the monarch. This was the Court physician.

He glided in and out among the brightly dressed[9] throng of courtiers, wrapped in his black cloak, with his finger on his lips, and watched everything. It was like the mummy at the Egyptian feast, only more terrible, as if it had been a mummy which might at any instant start to life, and bid the giver of the feast take its place in the sarcophagus.

When the time came, the physician unclosed his lips and pronounced the fatal word. Then the king disappeared silently from view, and a new ruler took his place.

This was the new Vehmgericht.

Like the ancient Venetian doges, the kings of Franconia walked everywhere, surrounded by an atmosphere of mysterious dread. Secret eyes were upon them always. Oubliettes were prepared under their feet, into which they never knew the moment when they might not be cast. And from these oubliettes there was no chance of escape.

The dooms of science are more relentless than the dooms of superstition. In the bosom of a Grand Inquisitor there might lurk mercy as much as a grain of mustard seed. Mercy is a word which science is unable to comprehend. Its judgments are merely conclusions. Mathematical reasoning cannot be bent aside by emotional considerations.

Leopold IX. was the worst king of this line. This was because he was the most sane. He was selfish, ignorant, utterly heartless, grasping, cruel, lustful, a glutton, and a bad son and father. But he was neither a drunkard nor an epileptic. To such a[10] man science had nothing to say. The secret inquisitor was powerless. Leopold IX. had broken the curse. He was too much like the average man to be mad.

His younger brother Otto had been an easier victim. Within a year of his marriage with the beautiful Hermengarde of Schwerin-Strelitz, he had disappeared. Men whispered that the stately, cold-looking bride had given her approval to this consummation. Be that as it may, Otto passed the years till his death plaiting straw, like many another of the Astolf princes. Some of them plaited crowns; these were light and easy to wear.

Leopold reigned on. His people had to suffer a great deal. A few of his exploits are on record.

A jeweller in the capital had made his fortune. He was getting old, and meant to retire. The last transaction he undertook was a heavy purchase of diamonds. The stones were lying in his safe, when one night a troop of masked burglars broke in and carried off everything. The police of the capital were under the royal control, and on this particular night they had left that quarter of the city deserted. The robbers got off in perfect safety, and the old jeweller was ruined. Shortly afterwards he left the city. It was rumoured that he had retired to Stuttgart, the capital of a neighbouring kingdom.

A sergeant in the royal bodyguard had been imprisoned for a few months, and then banished, shortly before this event. This punishment had been awarded[11] for certain angry expressions which he had been heard to use about his royal master. The fellow had been let off lightly, as his mind was supposed to be affected by a family trouble. His daughter, a very beautiful young girl, had taken her own life and that of her unborn infant. The name of its father had not transpired. This sergeant was a man remarkable for his size and for the redness of his beard.

Riding out in the royal park one day, Leopold met a forester’s boy, a lad of seventeen. He gave him a cut across the face with his whip, which drew blood. This boy, too, had not been seen for some time. His name was Karl Fink.

Leopold had a wise dread of education. The schools which he found existing in his kingdom he would have put down if he dared. His anger was roused when he learned that some of the young artisans in his capital had started night classes in which they studied draughtsmanship, mathematics, and engineering. He ordered his police to break up these schools, and prosecute the ringleaders of the movement. They were afterwards discharged, but those of them who were still bent on acquiring knowledge had to turn their steps abroad. The chief of these young men was one Johann Mark, a journeyman printer.