Her Majesty the King X ^^^^^ : % f^jpp ^iii$M& :>j^* TH1-- \5i/A YF"A R.K Her Majesty the King A ROMANCE OF THE HAREM Done into American from the Arabic BY JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE Author of "S jngs and Satires," "Ballads of Blue Water," "Life of John Boyle Reilly," "The Story of the Filibusters," etc. ARTIET W VERIWI BOSTON RICHARD G. BADGER & CO. (Incorporated) 1901 PS COPYRIGHT 1898 BY JAMES JKFFREY ROCHE All Rights Reserved DEDICATION. To the lineal descendant of the Lady Kayenna, who told me this true history, the while I could but marvel and admire the teller ; for, of a truth, since Schehere- zade there hath been none to approach her in goodliness and wit and wisdom and all comeliness of mind and person and, es pecially, in a proper and intelligent appre ciation of THE ILLUSTRIOUS AUTHOR. FOREWARNING. (YEAR OF THE HEGIRA 1276.) MANY, and in sooth foolish, are they who writing books send them forth to the world with humiliat ing disparagement of their contents and servile appeals for mercy to those who may read them. Now a man who hath dates, or coffee, or rice to sell goeth not into the market-place crying out, " Lo ! the merchan dise which I offer for sale is poor and mouldy and unworthy stuff; yet of your charity, good people, I pray you to buy," seeking yet to cajole his hearers with coarse flattery. As if any man were silly enough to buy damaged goods because, forsooth, the vendor praised the good judgment of the buyer ! I, who have made the pilgrimage and kissed the Kaaba which endoweth with truth, am not as the Franks who trust to the be- guilement of the Stone of Bel-Arni. This Forewarning volume, containing the surprising adventures of the good Kayenna and the marvellous wisdom of Shacabac, the Wayfarer, needeth no apology. If it excelleth all other works of history in lofty thought, in rich imagery, in polished style, and in perfect diction, it is only because I have made it to do so. Had it existed in the days of the good Caliph Omar, wisest of all censors, it would not have shared the fate of that mass of un worthy literature by him justly condemned to the flames. Rather would it have been commended to all the faithful as a work not to be hastily skimmed by the light and thoughtless who seek transitory knowledge in the public libraries, but to be bought and preserved for careful and frequent study by the discriminating reader. While the work of no mortal is perfect, the only defect in this book is its brevity. Its merits are as many as its words. If any man fail to recognize them, let him wisely be silent, and, returning the book to him from whom he borrowed it, pray Allah for better judgment and mourn the hour in which he, unworthy, ever learned to read. CONTENTS. PAGE FOREWARNING ......... 7 CHAPTER 1 ........... , 3 He that repenteth too late may some time worry too soon. The Katamarana. CHAPTER II ........... zi A lie grows so fast that its own parents may not rec ognize it. Deucalion. CHAPTER III .......... 32 The hardest thing to find is an honest partner for a swindle. Samith. CHAPTER IV .......... 39 A grandfather is a man who has two chances to make a fool of himself, and seldom neglects them. Ginglymus. CHAPTER V ........... 52 An omen, said the Fakir, is a sign of the future. Blame not the omen, but the future, if the sign prove not true. Sbirax, the Younger. CHAPTER VI .......... 63 The man who can invent a good working substitute for honesty has yet to be invented himself. Eastern Pro-verb. CHAPTER VII .......... 71 Nevertheless, much depends on a man s horoscope. One is born in the desert, and becomes a brigand; another is reared in the great city, and publishes books. It is Kismet. Ben Haround. Contents PAGE CHAPTER VIII 84 What is a cryptogram? asked the Pupil. It is a cipher, replied the Sage. What is a cipher ? persisted the Pupil. It is naught, answered the Sage. Is there a cryptogram in this book ? asked the Pupil. If there be, a Sage alone will find it. It should ex plain aught that may seem irrelevant. . The JVhdom of Sb ac abac. CHAPTER IX 101 There are times when it is inexpedient, if not actually immoral, to kill the bediamonded clerk of a caravan sary. Manco Capac. CHAPTER X no Surely, thou dost not expect strangers to pay for thy books. And, surely, thou wouldst not ask thy friends to buy them. Seek some other way of achieving wealth through letters. And let me know if thou findest it. The Pauper Poet. CHAPTER XI 122, Some men borrow books; some men steal books; and others beg presentation copies from the author. Ben Haround. CHAPTER XII 139 In time of war begin to prepare for it. The Corn- pleat Art of Logistics, by fang Kee. CHAPTER XIII 148 Every nation has just the government for which its people are fitted; at least, that is what is said by the rulers who are piously engaged in misgoverning it. Manco Capac. CHAPTER XIV 156 This Book is a Mirror wherein the Wise Man seeth Wisdom, but the Fool seeth Folly. Sbacabac. THE ILLUSTRATIONS. BY FRANK BIRD MASTERS. PAGE SHACABAC, THE WAYFARER . . . Frontispiece THE AUTHOR . . . . . Facing Forewarning KAYENNA 15 THE PHYSICIAN 23 MULEY MuSTAPHA 33 THE SULTAN OF KOPAUL 41 BADEG, ASTROLOGER 53 HER MAJESTY THE KING 65 AL CHOPPAH, HEADSMAN 73 THE AMERICAN, AS FOUND 85 THE AMERICAN, AS FOUND LATER . . . 103 IMPRESSIONS OF THE COUNTRY . . . . 1 1 1 THE WELCOMING ORATOR 123 THE BOARD OF STRATEGY 141 PRINCE MULEY 149 ONE OF PRINCE MULEY S BRIDES . . . 157 HER MAJESTY THE KING CHAPTER I. He that repenteth too late may some time worry too soon. The Katamarana. THE Pasha Muley Mustapha was unhappy. He was a peace- loving, easy - tempered man, as Pashas go, and, when allowed to have his own way, was never inclined to ask for more. But now, after seven years of wedded life, he found his wishes thwarted, not for the first time, by the caprice of a woman, and that woman his only wife, Kayenna, well surnamed the Eloquent. The misunderstanding had arisen, innocently enough, in this way : 3 14 Her Majesty the King " I think, my dear," said Muley Mustapha, as he sat smoking his nargi- leh one day at the beginning of this history, while his wife reclined on a divan, " I think, my dear, that my parents (may their memory be blessed !) made a great mistake in their treatment of me in my youth. I was brought up too strictly. They gave me no oppor tunity of seeing life in all its phases. Consequently, I find myself, in middle age, almost a stranger among my own subjects. I mean to adopt an entirely different system with little Muley." "In what way ? " asked his wife, ris ing on her elbow, and casting a suspi cious look at her lord. " Well, in this way," replied Muley Mustapha, deliberately, " in this way. I intend to let him go out into the world, mingle with the youth of his own age, share in their sports, and, as the Giaours say, * sow his wild oats. " Muley Mustapha," said his wife, Her Majesty the King 17 sitting bolt upright, " you shall do nothing of the sort. * Sow his wild oats, indeed ! He shall never leave my sight, not for a single moment, until he is a grown man and I have provided him with a wife to take my place as guardian of his morals. It ill becomes the trusted vassal of my noble father, the Sultan of Kopaul, to talk thus of corrupting the child who is to be one day ruler of that mighty em pire. You forget that fact, Muley Mustapha." " On the contrary," retorted the Pasha, a little tartly, " I am not likely to forget it, so long as the daughter of the Sultan of Kopaul condescends to remain the wife of the Pasha of Ubikwi." For Muley Mustapha had married above his station, and the circumstance had not been permitted to escape his memory. He never complained of his lot; but, when his faithful Vizier once 1 8 Her Majesty the King hinted that the Koran allowed each true believer the blessing of four wives, he answered with a sigh, " I find one enough for this world : the rest I will take in houris." Some subtle reflection of that senti ment must have made itself visible on the face of the Pasha at this moment ; for his worthy spouse, with apparent irrelevance, suddenly exclaimed, " Muley Mustapha, if you are going to cast your vagabond Vizier in my face, I will leave the room until I have time to go home to my father, who will protect me from insult." " Great Allah ! " cried the Pasha. " Who is casting anybody in your face? And who has mentioned the name of the Vizier? " But the virtuous Kayenna had risen to her feet, and in low, intense tones began : " Sir, there is a limit to what even a wife may endure. When I think that Her Majesty the King 19 a son of mine is threatened with con tamination at the hands of a low, dis reputable, adventurous vagabond, like your worthless underling" Here the good lady was so over come by her feelings that she burst into a flood of tears, and had to be borne, shrieking, to her apartments. " I foresee that I shall have trouble in bringing up that boy," mused Muley Mustapha, as he relighted his nargileh, and stroked his flowing beard. Braver man there was not in all Islam than the dauntless young Pasha of Ubikwi, whose valor on many a hard-fought field finally won him the favor of the Sultan of Kopaul, and the fair hand of that Sultan s only child. Once, some years after his mar riage, he propounded to Shacabac the Wayfarer, then a sage whose merits had not been appreciated by a dull generation, the old paradox of the 20 Her Majesty the King Prankish schoolmen : " When an irre sistible force meets with an immovable object, what happeneth ? " And the wise man answered, "In case of matri mony, the Force retireth from busi ness." Struck by the aptness of the reply, Muley Mustapha made the sage his Vizier on the spot. From that day forth the Pasha had peace in his household. There is much virtue in self-abnegation ; but, like most unconditional surrenders, it does not always evoke the admiration of the victors. Yet was Muley Mus tapha not without his reward. Kay- enna knew just how far she might venture in dictating to him, and, by ju diciously yielding that for which she cared naught, managed ever to obtain that which she desired. Thus doth the wise spouse gain new raiment by denying to her lord the society of an unbeloved mother-in-law. CHAPTER II. A lie grows so fast that its own parents may not recognize it. Deucalion. THREE days after the occurrence of the events narrated in the preceding chapter a venerable man, clad in the robes of a physician, was ushered into the presence of the Pasha. He salaamed low, and said, " Great and mighty Pasha, I bring thee good news." " Speak," said the Pasha : " what is thy news ? " " Great and good tidings," answered the leech. " Mother and child are doing well." " Allah be blessed ! " said Muley Mustapha. " And the boy ? My own little Muley ! Is he a healthy, comely lad, such an one, think you, as will 22 Her Majesty the King hold his own among the gallants of the land, and not prove a puny milksop, clutching his mother s apron-string ? " " Truly, O potent Pasha," was the answer, " it is a fair and well-formed child, but" " But me no buts, knave," roared the Pasha. " Barest thou say the boy is deformed, blind, deaf, lame ? Speak, or by the beard of the Prophet "- " Mercy, O gracious lord ! I meant nothing," cried the sage, falling on his knees, "only this the child" " Well, go on, and quickly. The child "- " Is a girl, O great and mighty " But Muley Mustapha had leaped to his feet, spurning the old man from his way, and was shouting to his chief eunuch : " Ho, there, slave ! Send me straight way the Vizier and the Soothsayer and hark ye, slave, send me the Heads- Her Majesty the King 25 man. By Allah ! there is work here for all three." The Pasha had a rich command of language, and he made free use of it while awaiting the summoned func tionaries. Soon they were ushered into his presence, the swart Nubian, Al Choppah, bringing up the rear of the procession. The Soothsayer prostrated himself at the feet of the Pasha, who thus addressed him : " O triple-tongued liar and silver- haired son of Gehenna, what hast thou to say for thyself? Dost remember that but six months ago thou didst issue a prophecy, standing before us as proud and confident as Bhilibidam, the haughty prince of Eblis, and didst say that I was to be the father of a son, and didst warrant the prediction with thy head ? What should be done, O Shacabac, with such a defaulter on his sacred pledge ? " " So please your Highness," replied 26 Her Majesty the King the Vizier, promptly, " I should fore close on the security." "It is well said," quoth the Pasha, and, signing to the Nubian, bade him advance and do his duty. Al Choppah ran his thumb along the edge of his scimitar, swung it slowly aloft, and was about to bring it down, when the Soothsayer, in a trembling voice, cried out : " The will of Allah be done ! But hath not thine own trusted adviser counselled mercy to all creat ures, even to the least merciful ? And, even though I die, I tell thee that the child born to thee this day shall reign over Kopaul ! " Astounded and secretly a little im pressed by this remarkable speech, Muley Mustapha signed to the Nu bian to withdraw to the ante-chamber. Then, bidding the Soothsayer stand up, he said sternly : " Do not dare hope to escape thy doom by laughing at our beard. Explain thy riddle; but, Her Majesty the King 27 first, Shacabac, what means the slave by saying that thou hast counselled mercy even to the least merciful of creat ures?" Shacabac, who did not disdain the music of his own voice, replied : " Truly, this Soothsayer hath deeply offended ; but he showeth a proper taste in literature, and, perchance, seeth more of the future than ordinary mor tals. It is true, I have counselled mercy to all creatures ; for mercy may sometimes be wisdom. I have said: " ( Kick not the sleeping tiger in thy path ; and, if thou meetest a shark in the river, go thy way, the sea is wide enough for him and for thee. " * Utter no evil, not even of the dumb beasts. If thy horse offend thee, put him away from thee ; and, when thou sellest him, speak only of his good parts. " I have also written : c Dispute not with thy neighbor if his hens permeate 28 Her Majesty the King thy garden, but bid them welcome and give them shelter. So shalt thou have fresh-laid eggs for thy breakfast. " As to this wretched Soothsayer, I fear me much his character as a prophet is sorely damaged. Nevertheless, as I have written elsewhere : " A bad character is better than none at all. Rather behave ill than have men say of thee, Lo, he knoweth not how to behave. Just then appeared a slave with the startling tidings that a messenger from the great Sultan of Kopaul had arrived, and besought an interview. If Shacabac was annoyed at being interrupted in the pleasant pastime of quoting from his own works, which is said to be not a displeasing diversion with other great writers, the Pasha quickly recalled him to more pressing matters, by saying : " Now, Shacabac, great is thy written wisdom. Mayhap thou hast wit enough to tell us how we Her Majesty the King 29 may break the news to the great Sultan, my father-in-law, that his grandson - dog of a Star-gazer, that was thy pre cious work ! is a grand-daughter." But even the wisdom of Shacabac was unequal to such a contingency ; and this true story would never have been written, had not the Soothsayer averted an irreparable loss to literature by humbly asking permission to speak. "Speak," replied the Pasha, "and see that thy words be precious ; for on them hangs thy life." Thus encouraged, the Soothsayer first asked, how many people knew of the child s sex. He was informed that, besides themselves there present, only the mother and the attendant physician as yet possessed that knowl edge ; but the whole country would know of it, to their grief, when the wrathful Sultan learned how his hopes had been blighted. " And upon my head, O wretched juggler," cried the 30 Her Majesty the King Pasha, " shall fall the chief weight of his anger. Accursed be the hour in which I was not born a girl ! " The last two words he uttered with infinite grief and scorn. " Then, O Pasha, the country is safe, if the Physician be silenced, and we, keeping the secret to ourselves, inform the Sultan that his daughter and grand son are doing well. The Sultan is very old (may his years be many !), and he will have gone to his fathers long ere he discover the deception ; and thou and thy noble spouse shall reign in Kopaul ere anybody know, if they ever know, that thy son is not thy son." Audacious as was this proposition, yet the Pasha grasped at it as a drown ing man at a straw, especially as it met the approval of Shacabac. He gener ally accepted the advice of that wise and good philosopher. The Soothsayer and the Physician were enjoined to strict silence ; and, the Her Majesty the King 31 better to insure it, they were com mended to the care of Al Choppah, the Nubian, who, being a mute, could tell no tales. His two guests do not ap pear again in this history. CHAPTER III. The hardest thing to find is an honest partner for a swindle. Samith. UT it was absolutely necessary for the peace and dignity of the realm of Ubikwi that the court should not be without an official Sooth sayer. Wherefore the vacant office was presently filled by a young and prom ising astrologer, Badeg by name, who had studied for some years at the feet of his lamented predecessor. Muley Mustapha, while secretly contemning the whole science because of the wretched blunder whereby he thought himself the chief sufferer (though the lately deceased soothsayer, had he been able to give an opinion, might have thought otherwise), found it hard work to keep up a pretence of respecting the new incumbent and his 32 Her Majesty the King 35 office. Kayenna, more alive to the danger of arousing suspicion, took pains on every c ccasion to show pro found respect for the holy man, and never failed to enjoin. a similar course on the part of her lord. It was not her fault if Muley Mustapha erred on that or, indeed, on any line of policy ; for in all Ubikwi there was not a wife more ready at all times to direct her husband in the path of right. Nevertheless, there was something about the new astrologer which caused her uneasiness, worried Muley Mus tapha, and disturbed the serene imper turbability of Shacabac. It was this. Whenever he issued a prediction, were it only a casual prophecy of the coming weather, he always accompanied it with a qualifying phrase, such as, " Allah permitting," " subject to other condi tions," " errors and omissions ex- cepted," or something equally foreign to all the traditions and precedents of 36 Her Majesty the King prophecy. At such times he was wont to cast at Muley Mustapha, Kayenna, or the good Shacabac a swift, furtive glance which did not add to the mental composure of any of them. Yet, such is the effect of a guilty conscience, not one of the three ever questioned his slightest assurance, no matter how the prediction turned out. If he foretold "rains, followed by showers, for the Lower Lake region," on a given day, and that day happened to be the sunniest of the whole year, the Pasha was sure to appear in water proof garments, with an umbrella osten tatiously in his hand, and took pains, if he met the prophet, to declare that this was truly a wonderful season for rain, but no doubt it would be good for the crops. The Soothsayer never made any reply other than, " Great is Allah, and wonderful are his ways ! " Kayenna was annoyed and Shacabac alarmed at the unwisdom on the part Her Majesty the King 37 of Muley Mustapha in thus overdoing his part, especially as Badeg, grown bolder with the immunity shown him, began to be absolutely reckless in his prognostications, sending out forecasts of the stock market which, had they been followed, would have bankrupted the royal exchequer. A deputation of traders called upon the Pasha to protest ; but the wise Vizier met them with the calm assur ance that the prophet was a man marked by heaven as insane, and there fore doubly deserving of homage. " Should his visitation prove chronic," said the sage, " it may be taken as a sign that he should be made custodian of the national treasury." Whereupon the merchants withdrew their protests, averring with one voice that without doubt the Soothsayer was sane and wise beyond the sons of men, and that they would thenceforth accept his predic tions as inspired, and govern them- 3 8 Her Majesty the King selves accordingly. The which they did ; but it was noticed that the market from that time became conservative, and business flourished the more as it was fostered the less by government, even as the Giaour jest hath it, that the patient getteth well or dieth without the assistance of the doctors. CHAPTER IV. A grandfather is a man who has two chances to make a fool of himself, and seldom neglects them. Ginglymus. WHILE the events recorded in the preceding chapter and covering some years had their influence on the affairs of state, life within the harem went quietly on. Kayenna, the faithful spouse of Muley Mustapha, accepted the con gratulations of her friends on the birth of little Muley ; and it was remarked that, so devoted a mother was she, no body but herself was ever allowed to nurse or watch or otherwise care for the beloved ch\\d. " My daughter will spoil the brat and bring him up a regular milksop," growled the great Sultan one day after paying a prolonged visit to the happy 39 40 Her Majesty the King couple. " I thought you had an idea, Muley, of rearing the boy to be a manly fellow and letting him see the world." " Truly, 1 had," was the reply, rather sadly made ; " but, as he is our only child, his mother is so passionately at tached to him that I cannot find it in my heart to train him as robustly as I should wish." " Bosh ! " ejaculated the fiery old monarch. " My grandson should be taught to fear nothing, whereas he looks and acts like a girl. Send him to Kopaul for a while, and I promise you he will learn some manliness." But to this proposition Kayenna de murred so vigorously that the old Sul tan was forced to desist ; for that truly admirable woman had the happy fac ulty, whether as daughter, wife, or mother, of bending every will in her own direction, which was that of right- o eousness always. Heaven had blessed JPfciJ,* f flf- ^*A*(*j*>^j*^w*i*->r> - H**t*** ** ***> *| ^- wfAU^^K <JS i^i*. *U H^yrv^"*- -^^^c ^o* - f LJH tiSSC-? " ^s^-.fe > .wv>yy wirS.^>s* - ff- \ T: !K ,-j^ ^Xff.^^-^a.l^f-^-.,. V rf^v^-- O [- - *^ ^ 4^W-M^-^*^ H^-tirt*** J *-C THE Her Majesty the King 43 her from infancy with a fine flow of language, accompanied by a noble firm ness of purpose, so that such was the repute of her wisdom, whenever she opened the coral portals of her speech, the whole court was ready to accept her dictum on any question rather than waste time and invite humiliation by the fruitless attempt to controvert her. The Sultan went home discontented. Before departing, he took Muley Mus- tapha aside, and said impressively : " Muley, if I had a wife like yours, I would teach her humility if I used up a cord of bamboos and half a dozen eunuchs." Then, sighing heavily, he added : " After all, it is not your fault, but that of myself, who brought her up sparingly as to the bamboo. If you should ever have a daughter, Muley," the Pasha gave a slight start at the word, " which Allah forbid ! " con tinued the Sultan, " take the advice of an old man, and" He finished the 44 Her Majesty the King sentence with an eloquent gesture of the right arm extended from the shoul der at an upward angle of forty-five degrees, fingers close together, and palm forward. This gesture, when made with the arm raised perpendicu larly, is a sign of peace among the Bedouins and other nomads. It was not as such that the Sultan employed it. " What did my father mean by lift ing his hand like the sail of a wind mill ? And of what was he speaking as he bade you farewell ? " asked Kayenna, when she and Muley found themselves alone. " Oh, nothing," was the reply. "He was talking about the education of our daught" " Muley Mustapha ! Do you mean to say that you told him ? " No, no, my dear, of course not. Only when he said something about our ever having a daughter, I was so surprised that I feared he might have suspected something, and for the mo- Her Majesty the King 45 ment regretted that we had deceived him about his c grandson. tc And, pray, who deceived him ? " queried Kayenna, with icy severity. " I, for one, have not. I have never told him that our little darling was or was not a boy. If he choose to deceive himself or to be deceived by tricksters like your vagabond Vizier, that is his own concern, not mine. I know what his gesture signified ; but, thank Allah, corporal punishment was abolished in my nursery by my angel mother, and my honored sire has not forgotten the occasion, I ween." Kayenna wore such a pensive smile of retrospective happiness in saying this that Muley Mustapha did not give a moment s entertainment to his father- in-law s counsel, but prudently resolved to put the bamboo plant to other and more profitable uses ; and Shacabac, to whom he confided his troubles, com mented sagely : "The spinster knoweth 46 Her Majesty the King how to bring up children, and the bach elor to rule a wife. It is well that they remain single : else who would be will ing to leave this happy world, had they the direction of its family affairs ? " " How hath it happened," asked the Pasha, after ruminating some minutes on this proposition, " that thou thyself hast never married ? " " Solely in order that I might the better devote myself to the improve ment and instruction of my fellow- men ; for, if there be one man on earth who knoweth less than all others, it is he who is the husband of a wife, and she will be first to tell him the same. While Allah preserveth her, his halo shall never be too small for his head. I " No man knoweth what true happi ness is until he getteth married : then is the knowledge rather a sweet memory than a new boon. " Twice blessed is he in whose tent dwell both his mother and his wife s Her Majesty the King 47 mother ; for, even though he gain not Paradise, yet shall he fear not Gehenna. "In choosing a wife, disdain not youth nor beauty ; for these are things which time will cure. " Love not a woman for her riches ; but, loving first the riches, thou shalt learn in time to love her for their sake. " There are two ways of missing the miseries of matrimony : one is by not getting married, the other by not being born. The Prophet hath said that there is a third, which is by always overlooking the errors of thy partner. I know naught about this, but it recall- eth an apologue : " There were two brothers of Bas- sorah who dwelt under the same roof, both being married. They had the misfortune, about the same time, to offend their wives most grievously. Kadijah, the wife of the elder, was so incensed that she never again spoke to her lord. Zobeide, the younger, not 48 Her Majesty the King only forgave her spouse, but made it a point every day, in reminding him of his fault, to forgive him again most solemnly. Yet was the husband of Zobeide no happier than that of Kadijah ; and when, finally losing pa tience, she procured a divorce from him, the ungrateful wretch only said, It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all. Truly, matrimony is a state into which none but the wise should enter, and they do not." Encouraged by the silent approval of the Pasha, and fortified by a copious draught of the strong waters forbidden, but not unknown, to true believers, concerning the use whereof he had elo quently written : " Hospitality saith, Be blind when the guest helpeth him self to thy wine flask ; but be deaf when he asketh for more ; also, Tempt not thy neighbor with the cup which ine briates, lest he fall; but, if thy neighbor Her Majesty the King 49 offer thee to drink, refuse him not, lest thou give him needless pain, " the Sage continued : " To be constant in love to one is good : to be constant to many is great. " Politeness between husband and wife costeth nothing. Were it other wise, the virtue would be even rarer than it now is. " Marry not any woman out of grati tude, lest perchance she come in time to wonder where the reward cometh in." Furthermore, he inculcated the sage maxim : " Save up money for a rainy day, and it is sure to rain." He also added, perhaps irrelevantly, for like other great philosophers he never allowed his mind to be fettered by text or theme, " Be not concerned if thou findest thyself in possession of unexpected wealth. Allah will provide an unexpected use for it." In conclusion, he said impressively, after vainly shaking the now empty wine- 50 Her Majesty the King flask : " It hath been said of the son of the desert, Lo ! he hath sand ; but what availeth a whole Sahara, and no sugar to blend therewith ? Or who that hath a river before his door, and never a cow in his barn, shall grow rich in the milk business? " To this pertinent question the ven erable Muley Mustapha made no re joinder, because in truth he had fallen asleep ere the Sage had been fairly launched on his discourse, which would have been lost to posterity, had not the speaker thoughtfully taken notes of the same, a practice commended to all preachers afflicted with drowsy congre gations. Shacabac withdrew silently from the presence, musing not for the first time on the generous lack of appreciation bestowed by the great upon the wise. As he was about to enter his humble domicile, he suddenly perceived a large tiger stretched sleeping before his hearth, Her Majesty the King 51 whereupon he moved noiselessly to the roof of the house without disturbing the fierce animal or alarming the other inmates who might molest the unbidden visitor. Unhappily, his delicacy was but ill rewarded ; for his rich and parsi monious uncle, whose fortune he sub sequently inherited, on entering the kitchen the next morning, was incon tinently devoured by the ungrateful brute. The sad event was commemo rated by the Sage in a noble threnody, wherein the virtue of resignation is beautifully set forth. Rare indeed was the occasion, or dire the catastrophe, from which the worthy man could not extract some moral or material benefit. CHAPTER V. An omen, said the Fakir, is a sign of the future. Blame not the omen, but the future, if the sign prove not true. Shiraz, the Younger. SO it came to pass that little Muley grew up into his nineteenth year, a tail, well-favored, graceful strip ling, but distinctly a " mother s boy " ; and nobody but his parents and the dis creet Shacabac held, or thought they held, the secret of his effeminate ap pearance. Then one day, sudden and fearful as the khamsin wind of the desert, came a message from the aged grandsire, in forming Muley Mustapha and Kayenna that he had contracted a noble alliance for the heir to his throne with the Prin cess Amine, only daughter of his neigh bor, the powerful King of Nhulpar. Now here was a most serious com- 52 .yfil CLOUDY WARME.P* foUev/ e-/ JHVNDEP. Her Majesty the King 55 plication. The King of Nhulpar was the mightiest monarch of all the earth. Twenty caliphates trembled at his nod ; an hundred thousand lances were levelled at his word ; the number of wild riders ready to follow his standard were as the sands of the desert multiplied by the sands of the seashore. When he said, " Do this," it must be done, whether it could be done or not. In fact, he rather liked performing impossibilities by proxy, the daring one who failed in the task being added to his Majesty s large and varied collection in the royal mausoleum of Dedhed. Had he known that the Sultan of Kopaul in offering his " grandson s " hand in marriage to the Princess Amine was essaying the most impossible of all impossibilities, he would have been de lighted beyond expression. He had not a single Sultan s head in his album ; but even that of a Pasha was not to be despised, as Muley Mustapha thought 56 Her Majesty the King with a shudder, when he was apprised of his father-in-law s well-meant but most compromising negotiations. What was to be done? It was not possible much longer to deceive the old Sultan ; and it was absolutely out of the question to traverse the wishes of the fiery king. <c You see to what a pass you and your vagabond Vizier have brought us," said Kayenna. " Now, mayhap, you may be able between you to extri cate us from it." "I I don t know," stuttered the bewildered Pasha, who did not see why he was especially to blame for the blun der of a dead and gone Soothsayer. Then, clutching at the suggestion of a companion in misery, he added : " By all means, my dear, let us call in Shaca- bac ; and he may advise us for the best. He has some very sound views upon matrimony, I know." " Yes, no doubt he has," said Kay- Her Majesty the King 57 enna, ironically. " I can fancy what they are like, but I should wish to have him repeat them to me." Kay- enna did not admire the abstruse phi losophy of Shacabac, which she did not fully understand ; but, with keen femi nine intuition, she knew that it could be only evil, for she disliked the phi losopher. She was, however, seriously impressed with one of his more homely maxims, which she always endeavored to follow, namely : " Talk not with thy guest of his own affairs, for with those he is sufficiently acquainted ; but discourse ever of thine own, of thy good luck and ill, of thy horses, thy servants, thy children, and thine ailments. If thou dost not suc ceed thereby in making him feel at home, thou mayst at least induce him to wish himself there." Fortified by these maxims, she con sented to the presence of the Sage at the family council. 58 Her Majesty the King The messenger despatched for Sha- cabac found him in his lecture hall, dis coursing to a class of scholars on Omens, and illustrating his words of wisdom with apposite examples. Even royalty had to wait until the precious pearls falling from his lips should be gathered by his hearers. He was saying : " It is very lucky to find a horse shoe, if there be a horse attached ; but unlucky, if the owner be about. " It is a bad omen to meet, on leav ing thy house in the morning, a mad dog, a tiger which hath not break fasted, or a man to whom thou owest money. " Steel cuts love. The great Sultan Ras-el-Dasl never knew perfect conju gal bliss after inadvertently throwing the carving knife at his favorite sultana. " To break a mirror is also porten tous of evil. Backsheesh, the porter, Her Majesty the King 59 once incautiously smashed a large pier- glass over the head of his spouse ; and it cost him a month s fees to replace them both. "It is unlucky to sleep thirteen in a bed." Here the Sage was rudely inter rupted by a voice, which said, " I know of something yet more unlucky than all of these, something which neither great nor small, neither Pasha nor Sage, may do with impunity." Shacabac fixed an angry eye in the direction of the intruder, but lowered it when he discovered the speaker to be Badeg, who was gazing at him with a contemptuous leer. " I see a messenger from the palace," said the Sage ; " and this class is now dismissed. Badeg, I will speak with thee anon ; for I would fain know what thou hast learned from the stars that is more wondrous than the marvels of which I have humbly discoursed-" 60 Her Majesty the King " Speak as thou wishest, or hold thy tongue, if that be wiser," replied the Astrologer, insolently ; " but my words are for thy betters, who may find them more precious than golden sequins, and only less valuable than my silence." With this significant threat, Badeg wrapped his mantle about him, and strode away, leaving a visible impres sion on the minds of the students, who listened to him in wonder. Shacabac, much disconcerted, re paired to the palace, where he remained long in consultation with the Pasha and his spouse. But, in a case wholly without prece dent in history or fiction, the wisdom of even so great a man as Shacabac is necessarily at fault : the experience of one so aged as Muley Mustapha avails no more than the instincts of a child. Only the intuition of the superior mind finds a solution of the difficulty, or, at worst, a means of deferring the ca tastrophe. Her Majesty the King 61 The present case proved to be no ex ception. After listening patiently to the timid suggestions of her lord and the ineffectual though sagacious aphorisms of the Vizier, Kayenna calmly ob served : " I see that there is but one way of settling the matter. I will go with the child to Nhulpar." "And tell the King the truth?" cried both men, in consternation. "And tell the King the truth," echoed Kayenna, blandly. " But it will cost both of your lives ! " exclaimed Shacabac. "It will cost me my Pachalik," cried Muley Mustapha, dismally. "It will cost fifty thousand gold se quins, to begin with," replied the noble matron. "As a preliminary step, you will order the First Lord of the Treas ury to go into the Street of the Money changers, taking the Court Torturer along with him, and solicit a loan of that sum, at par, within half an houi 62, Her Majesty the King I shall prepare for our departure on the day after to-morrow, at sunrise. You, Shacabac, will come with us. See that the caravan and guards be ready ere the break of day." CHAPTER VI. The man who can invent a good working substi tute for honesty has yet to be invented himself. Eastern Proverb. GREAT were the rejoicings in Ubikwi when the news was an nounced that the young Prince Muley was about to wed the daughter of the mighty King of Nhulpar, becom ing thereby prospective heir not only to the Pachalik of Ubikwi, but also to a great Sultanship and a vastly greater Kingdom. The people rejoiced with great joy, not reflecting that, perchance, the cost of sustaining the triple digni ties might fall heavy on their own shoulders. But it hath ever been the way of the populace to take delight in increased burdens, provided the pack ages only be gaudily decorated ; wherein they differ from the camel 63 64 Her Majesty the King and the ass and other brute beasts, which have no appreciation of aes thetics. The merchants, especially, who ev-. erywhere boast of being a conservative class, that would rather pay ten piastres of tribute than one for the suppression of brigandage, hastened to lay their loyal congratulations before the Pasha. Shacabac received them affably, and in reply to their address delivered a discourse fraught with practical wisdom, of which unhappily only a few frag ments have been preserved to this day ; but these are not without their value to traders of another and a foreign gener ation. He said : " We have all more or less to do with Commerce. We buy goods, and sometimes pay for them. We sell the precious products of our hands or brains at the best price we can get. If the buyer pays up, we are sorry that we did not charge him more. If he fails, Her Majesty the King 67 we are glad that he did not decide to pay less on the piastre. When we have grown very rich, we speculate ; and that keeps us from being purse-proud and haughty. " Be diligent in keeping your ac counts. It is better to charge an item twice than to forget to charge it once. That is the true principle of Double Entry. " Pay as you go, but not if you in tend going for good. " Boast not of your wealth ; but let humility curb your tongues when the Assessor cometh around. " Buy when the market is rising : sell when it is going to fall. If you be not a prophet, any friend on the Street will notify you of each impending change. Were it not for this unfail ing, beautiful trust in human nature, few of us would be able to make money. "In selling goods by sample, let the 68 Her Majesty the King samples be at least as good as the ,bulk of the merchandise. " Do not put all the best figs at the top of the crate. Have just as good a layer on the bottom also ; for there are sometimes evil-minded persons who open the package at that end. " Concerning truth : Do not believe all that you hear or see, not even in the newspapers. Advertisers are human and liable to err. "It is a great mistake to suppose that all men are rogues. If there were not a large majority of fools in the world, who would buy stocks ? " The essence of Free Trade is em bodied in the axiom : Buy in the cheap est and sell in the dearest market. This is absolutely correct. I myself have bought shares for c half nothing, and doubled my money inside of a week. " Time is money. Every second saved at your mid-day lunch means Her Majesty the King 69 so many sequins by and by for your family physician. " Be not angry with your creditors, if they importune you. It is nobler to forgive and forget them. " Three removes are as bad as a fire, but that depends largely on how you stand with the underwriters. " Do not judge a customer by the clothes he wears : he may not have paid for them. Be courteous to all men. The humblest of your neigh bors may sit upon your jury one day. " A business man who finds it neces sary to attend a daily noon prayer- meeting is either abnormally virtuous or his piety is of a kind that needs a good deal of stimulus to keep it going." A young man who had listened with attention to this discourse came at the close to Shacabac and asked, " How shall I become rich without too much trouble?" " List to me," replied the wise man, 70 Her Majesty the King " and I will teach thee in six easy con secutive lessons, at one sequin per lesson." The young man, joyfully complying, paid the money, and sat at the feet of the Sage. But, when the course was over, he cried out, " Bismillah ! thou hast taught me naught." " Nay," returned the Sage. " I have taught thee how to make six sequins. Go to, ungrateful one." And the ungrateful one, abashed at the reproof, immediately opened a Commercial College where every branch of Business could be learned " while you wait." But the envious Badeg, looking on, scoffed aloud, saying, " / know how to make a fortune without waiting at all ! " CHAPTER VII. Nevertheless, much depends on a man s horo scope. One is born in the desert, and becomes a brigand; another is reared in the great city, and publishes books. It is Kismet. Ben Haround. A SPLENDID retinue attended the virtuous Kayenna, the high born Prince Muley, and the Sage Shacabac, as they set out at sun rise of the next day, from the gates of Ubikwi, on the long and toilsome journey to Nhulpar. Muley Mustapha watched them with tearful eyes, not knowing when, if ever, they might return, nor what might be the event of their enterprise ; still less and this con cerned him most sorely what would become of him in their absence. Nor were his forebodings lightened when he beheld the astrologer Badeg grinning malevolently at the departing caravan. 71 72. Her Majesty the King He would have been even more dis turbed in mind, had he seen the latter, as the cavalcade was setting forth, pluck the sleeve of Shacabac, and heard him whisper the fateful words : c< You asked me what omen was more malign than any of those you named. I will tell you. It is to cheat a mighty Sultan and try to cheat a mightier King by palming off a Princess for a Prince! " Pale with mingled anger and aston ishment, Shacabac rode his camel beside that of Kayenna, and, begging a private interview, hastily confided to her the malignant words of the astrologer. The brow of the fair lady darkened as much as a brow so fair could lose its alabaster hue. Then, summoning her chief of staff, she said to him, " Hark ye, Ben Zoin, trusty servant of my royal father, take at once twenty of your best lances, and, when we shall have reached the well of Al-kohol, and the caravan is in bivouac, steal forth Her Majesty the King 75 with them, letting no man know it but yourselves, and ride as for your lives to the capital of Kopaul. Demand immediate audience of the Sultan, this signet ring will admit you at any hour, tell him that there is treason in Ubikwi. Bid him summon his forces, and march at once to the relief of my husband. Should he find the rebels contumacious and able to withstand him, let him say to them that Kayenna of Ubikwi, with her son, the Heir Apparent of Nhulpar, and an hundred thousand spears, will be at the gates ere the waning of another moon. Go, and be silent ; for traitors may be in this caravan also." The bearded, black-browed Ben Zoin bowed as he took the sacred signet, and promised to be at the capital of Kopaul as speedily as camel might carry him. " Thou didst well to tell me of that caitiff s words, good Shacabac," said Kayenna, graciously; "and, though 76 Her Majesty the King thou art not over-clever in all things, yet I believe thee honest in most. For this act thou mayst find thyself one day Grand Vizier of three realms, an thou diest not of thy weight of wisdom in the mean time." Laughing gayly as the caravan pres ently came in sight of the oasis of Al-kohol, she gave the order to camp for the night. But, ere the second hour of encampment had passed, Ben Zoin and a score of the best lances in the cavalcade had stolen noiselessly out of the enclosure ; and none were missed until the morning s muster. "Where is my trusty Ben Zoin?" asked Kayenna, when the caravan was forming in order of march. Shaca- bac was so surprised at the question, knowing what he knew, that he was on the point of explaining to her, when a look from her keen eyes closed his lips. Her Majesty the King 77 " God is great," he muttered to him self. " Of a verity, I am becoming an imbecile ; or, mayhap, I have been one all my life without knowing it. If so, Allah be praised ! there is yet some hope for me ; for he who beginneth to understand himself hath at least reached the outer portals of Knowledge. But what an actress she is ! " Nobody seemed able to answer the question propounded so simply. The captains of the guard, all old soldiers and comrades of the missing warrior, said that they knew not how to explain .his absence. "He may have gone reconnoi tring," said one. " Some mischance hath surely be fallen him in the night," said another. " An evil genie may have spirited away him and his companions," said a third, who was brave, but imaginative, and suspected of composing poetry in his hours off duty. 78 Her Majesty the King " Most likely he hath proven traitor, and deserted," said the voice of an other, who was not of the old guard. " Ha ! what sayest thou ? " cried Kay- enna. " Come hither. Thy words are ominous. Come to my tent at noon day, and we will inquire further. This disappearance must be explained." Nothing more was heard of the miss ing soldier and his fellows ; and the caravan, much disturbed in mind, halted at noon by the oasis of Rhi, near to the wells of Burbon, famed for the exhilar ating quality of their waters. " And so thou hast reason to appre hend that Ben Zoin and his men have deserted the caravan of the Pasha s wife, being traitors or cowards?" queried Kayenna of the man who had suggested that explanation at the morn ing muster. " No," stammered the man : " I have no reason, only that it stands to reason that they could not have gone away Her Majesty the King 79 save of their free will ; and what else could they be but traitors if they " "Strange," mused Kayenna, " that an honest man never suspects his neighbor of being a knave, while a rascal is ever distrustful. But suspicion is like a plague. Once started, it attacks all. / even have caught the infection, and cannot withhold my suspicions of this worthy fellow. Let him be searched forthwith, so that my unjust thoughts of him may be forever dispelled." So, in despite of his protestations and even vigorous resistance, he was promptly stripped ; and, lo ! within the lining of his caftan was found a scroll of parchment addressed to his Majesty, the King of Nhulpar. " I did not know," said Kayenna, " that we had in our retinue a bearer of dispatches to the sovereign whom we are about to visit. From our worthy lord, mayhap ? " The poor wretch only shook his head. 8o Her Majesty the King " Not, perchance, from our royal father, of Kopaul ? " The captive groaned. " Then, as it does not appear to be a privileged communication, I will take the liberty of inspecting its contents. Meanwhile, Shacabac, you will bear witness that I have the messenger s per mission to examine the document." As a matter of fact, she had not that permission ; but the last man on earth to challenge the statement at that mo ment was the poor wretch pinioned by two stout guards and overshadowed by the giant form of Al Choppah, who, without understanding a word that was said, grinned anticipatively, as a consci entious sinecure might, at the thought of doing something, however trifling, in the line of duty. "To his Most Puissant Majesty, the Mighty King of Nhulpar," read Kayenna, as she unrolled the scroll, " from Badeg, Astrologer-in-chief to Her Majesty the King 81 the Court of Ubikwi, in prospective to the Court of Kopaul, and in humble hope to the Royal Court of Nhulpar, these : " I take this opportunity to inform your most gracious Majesty that the caravan which sets forth this day for your royal court goes upon a wicked and deceitful errand; namely, to im pose upon your Majesty." " That is enough," said Kayenna, re folding the scroll. " I see that thy master has been good enough to cast the horoscope of the King of Nhulpar; and a very pretty one it is. Pray tell me, has he cast thine, also ? No ! Well, let me do it for thee. It is not a very bright one ; but it hath this advantage over even more auspicious predictions, that it is absolutely and ir revocably true. I do not need to know under what planet or conjunction of the stars thou wast born, nor in what house a single sign of the zodiac was 82 Her Majesty the King domiciled on that unlucky day. Thy fortune began with the moment when thou didst accept the commission of that villain Badeg to play the spy and traitor on this caravan, and it will end ere the sun set on another day. Hast ever heard of the two-headed Snake of Rhi, the horrible monster with a veno mous mouth at either end of his body, wherewith he devours his prey ? What ! Badeg forgot to mention that trifling wonder to thee? What a dull knave he is to set himself up for an astrolo ger ! In a little while thou shalt know more than he has learned in all his life ; but the knowledge will not abide with thee so long, perchance. Ho there, Al Choppah, put up thy scimitar ! There is rarer sport here. To-morrow there shall be a treat for the caravan and the two-headed Snake of Rhi. "This two-headed serpent," ex plained Kayenna, carelessly, to Shaca- bac, " is a rare monster which delighteth Her Majesty the King 83 in flinging himself bodily on his prey, striking it with the middle of his length, then tightening himself, fold on fold, around the victim, until, life being all but crushed out, he feasts with his double heads on the dying body. I care little for such spectacles myself, for I think they savor of the gro tesque; but it will amuse our car avan, and make a weary hour pass pleasantly." CHAPTER VIII. What is a cryptogram ? asked the Pupil. It is a cipher, replied the Sage. What is a cipher ? persisted the Pupil. It is naught, answered the Sage. Is there a cryptogram in this book ? asked the Pupil. If there be, a Sage alone will find it. It should explain aught that may seem irrelevant. The Wis dom of Shacabac. NOW it happened that, some days before, a guard came unto the tent of Shacabac, leading a tat tered remnant of humanity, who had been found crawling toward the spring in dire distress. After allowing him to slake his thirst, and being unable to obtain from him any coherent expla nation of his forlorn condition, the guard brought him before Shacabac. The Sage, after bidding his body-ser vants to relieve the stranger of his valuables, asked him how he came to 84 Her Majesty the King 87 be in such woful plight. The outcast replied in the Lingua Franca dialect: " Truly, because I could not resist the inducement of a free ride from Nhulpar to Ubikwi ; but the people of my cara van deserted me in the wilderness two days since, and I have been in sore straits to reach this oasis." "And what was thy business in Ubikwi? " asked the Sage. " None whatever," replied the stran ger; "but it was a free ride, have I not told thee so ? and of course I went along." Struck by this remarkable explana tion, the Sage asked, " Of what country art thou ? " and the enfeebled one, lift ing his head proudly, replied, " I am an American." c< Nay," responded Shacabac, " thou art more likely to prove erelong that thou dost belong to a yet more numerous race, that of the deadheads." Nevertheless, he was so moved by 88 Her Majesty the King the piteous condition of the stranger that he allowed him to join the caravan and lead a pack-camel every day during the rest of the march. And the Sage wrote upon his tablets this precious aphorism: "The free lunch is for the thirsty, not for the hungry." A happy thought now occurred to Shacabac, and he said : - "The two-headed Snake is a beauti ful instrument of justice ; but, if your Highness will pardon her slave for offer ing a suggestion, I think that the pen alty is a trifle too short-lived. The crime deserves a more prolonged pun ishment." "That is true," rejoined Kayenna; "but, unfortunately, we omitted to bring the Court Torturer with us on this journey, and we can ill afford to waste precious time in mere diversion. Nevertheless, if you think of any de vice which may serve to enliven the noon hour of rest, do not hesitate to Her Majesty the King 89 speak. I feel in a kindly mood toward all the world at present, and would not rob so true a friend as yourself of any innocent pleasure." Thus encouraged, Shacabac proposed that the stranger whom the caravan had picked up by the oasis of Rhi should be sent for, and interrogated concerning the criminal jurisprudence of his out landish country beyond the Western Ocean. Kayenna was pleased to look gra ciously upon the suggestion, and im mediately despatched a slave in search of the stranger, who promptly appeared at the entrance of the pavilion of state. Great was the surprise of Shacabac on beholding the transformation which had occurred in the appearance of the man, but a few days agone the most forlorn outcast in all the land. From the rich folds of his jewelled turban to the red tips of his Levantine slippers, the whilom vagrant was attired in 90 Her Majesty the King splendid raiment, and bore himself with that dignity which in Occidental lands marks the owner of sumptuous apparel. Shacabac, whose keen eyes took note of all things, quickly recognized the habiliments before him. "Amrou s turban," he said to him self, making a mental inventory, " Cassim s slippers, and Selim s caftan ! That is the scimitar of Sokuin, resting in the sash of Tippoo, the Congo por ter, beside, as I live, the yataghan which I myself did foolishly wager but yester eve on the fall of an idle card ! An this keep on, the rascal will own the whole caravan ere we reach Nhulpar." For, by some necromancy known to his barbarian countrymen, the stranger had learned to control the fortuitous movements of inanimate pieces of pasteboard, so that they fell ever as he listed, but always contrary to the wishes of the true believer, who vainly chal- Her Majesty the King 91 lenged fate on what seemed a certain result. Allah alone knoweth how such prodigies are permitted to come to pass. Stirling his anger at this last outrage, because of Kayenna s presence, he bade the stranger kneel at the feet of her Highness, and affably addressed him as follows : " Dog of an unbeliever and scum of the saliva of jackals, her most gracious Highness deigns to ask of thee in what way do thy obscene countrymen punish a knave guilty of high treason against the mockery which they miscall a gov ernment." Whereunto the outcast replied, "Which?" " It is not a question of Which or of What," said Shacabac, severely, " but of How. In what way do the mis guided infidels of your country treat their desperate criminals ? for I suppose that not all of them are permitted to 9^ Her Majesty the King escape justice, and flee to more blessed lands, wherein they are enabled to de spoil the followers of the Prophet." "In grave cases," said the stranger, after a moment s reflection, " when the accused has neither friends nor money nor influence, he is subjected to prelim inary torture at the hands of what we eall the Interviewers. Often he is present in person during the ordeal ; but that is largely optional with him, and wholly so with them. In practice it has been found that the most satis factory interviews are conducted in the absence of the subject. It is a matter of taste and convenience. The real ordeal begins when the prisoner is sub jected to the Process of Lor." "And what is that?" asked Kay- enna and Shacabac, as with one breath. "It is a complicated process," was the answer, " but highly instructive. In the first place, the judge, or Cadi, as you would call him, orders twelve men, Her Majesty the King 93 who know nothing about the case, otherwise they would not be selected, to be arrested and imprisoned until the guilt or innocence of the accused can be established. Absolute ignorance of the question is the prime essential gov erning the selection of the twelve ; but total ignorance of everything consti tutes the ideal qualification of what we call a juror. The less the jurors know or are capable of knowing, the greater the probability that they will speedily agree upon a verdict. It is a very wise and ancient provision of Lor," added the stranger, reverently ; " for, if it were something foolish and new-fangled, it would seem impossible that any twelve men of intelligence could agree unanimously upon a ques tion so intricate as those which are usually brought before our juries. Happily, however, the jurors are not supposed to be intelligent ; and, conse quently, they nearly always agree upon 94 Her Majesty the King a matter concerning which any two of them would scarcely be found in accord outside of the sacred jury-room." " But, when they have agreed," in terposed Kayenna, who had a mind for things concrete, " what happens to the criminal ? " " Oh, the criminal ! " responded the stranger: "he is put under restraint at the beginning of the proceedings, as are the witnesses also, if there be any ; but that depends upon whether or not they be able to furnish securities for their appearance in court." "It is a strange system, this admin istration of Lor, as you call it," said Kayenna, not without some suspicion that the stranger was indulging in ro mance ; " but tell me in a word, does it never punish anybody?" "Does it?" ejaculated the stranger. "Well, I should say it does. It pun ishes everybody, the jurors, the judge, the witnesses, the people who have to Her Majesty the King 95 hear or read the proceedings of the court, the citizens who have to pay for all the business. Why, even the pris oner himself is sometimes punished, and always more or less annoyed by the procrastination and uncertainty of the whole affair. There are times in the life of such a man when he almost feels that Lor itself is a failure. Of course, he has his consolation, such as it is, in the flowers and sweetmeats and love-poems sent to him by non-resi dent members of Female Asylums for the Feeble-minded, once he is found guilty of a dazzling crime ; but what are flowers or candy or poetry to a man who feels that he is losing time which might be homicidally valuable to himself and society, under different circumstances ? " The stranger spoke with some heat, as one who might have himself expe rienced the sad uncertainty of Lor ; but Kayenna, with her logical mind, brought him quickly back to the main point. 96 Her Majesty the King "You say," said she, "that the crim inal is sometimes punished. Describe the process of capital execution." "It varies," responded the stranger, " in the different sections of my coun try. In some places the condemned is strangled : in others he is imprisoned * for life, but usually pardoned after a few years. In the State where I last dwelt they have introduced the fashion of electrocution ; that is to say, of kill ing the victim by electricity." " And how is that done ? " queried Kayenna, always interested in anything savoring of novelty. " I fear I cannot explain it clearly without the aid of a Brush generator or a dynamo of some kind, and I do not see anything of the sort hereabout. But your Highness no doubt has often seen the effects of a thunder-storm whereby somebody was slain, in the twinkling of an eye as it were. It is thus that we destroy such of our crim inals as outlive the Process of Lor." Her Majesty the King 97 <f What doth the knave mean ? " asked Kayenna, with a frown, aside to Shacabac. "It passeth my comprehension," was the reply, " but I fear me the dog laugheth at our faces ; for how can any man call down lightning from heaven to destroy his enemies ? " Then, ad dressing the stranger, he asked sternly : " Hath this divinity of thine this not very infallible Lor command of the forces of nature, so that it can at will draw down the thunderbolt wherewith to smite its victims ? Thy tale is won drous strange. Her Highness would fain see a proof of it. Take out the culprit, guilty of high treason but yes terday, and let him be Electrocuted, as thou callest it, before our eyes. Say I not right?" he added, turning toward Kayenna. " Thou sayest but what is right and just," was the prompt response; "and I confess that I am interested in see- 98 Her Majesty the King ing the operation of this invention so strangely chanced upon by ignorant unbelievers. Go on, stranger. The victim is ready. Let us see thee elec trocute him forthwith." But, as obedience to that command was wholly beyond the stranger and as he could not give a satisfactory or intelligible explanation of his inability to obey, Kayenna became exceedingly wroth ; and, being moreover a good deal tired of his long and tedious dis quisition on Lor, she settled the matter summarily by saying : " This stranger is an impostor who hath doubtless fled from the rude justice of his own coun try. Let him be cast, along with the traitor, into the cave of the two-headed Snake ; and thus let there be an end to all knaves and liars ! " This sentence being communicated to the American, he fell at the feet of Kayenna, and begged as a dying request that his picture might be taken before Her Majesty the King 99 execution. On being asked why he desired that such a crime against the law of Moses as well as of Mohammed should be perpetrated, he only an swered, in a somewhat incoherent fash ion, "so that it might appear in the papers." " But knowest thou not," said Kay- enna, sternly, " that it is forbidden by thy law, as by ours, to make a graven image or likeness of any living thing ? " " O Lord ! " wailed the unhappy man, " surely a newspaper picture does not come under that head ! But take me away," he added despairingly. " People who never heard of electrocu tion cannot be expected to appreciate electrotypes." So he was borne to his dungeon ; and in a short time four stalwart slaves thrust him, along with the condemned traitor, into the mouth of the cave of the horrible two-headed Snake, there to suffer the most cruel death ever con ceived of by mortal mind. ioo Her Majesty the King But mortal mind erred, at least for once. On visiting the cave next morn ing, the executioners found not a trace of the two culprits, wherefore they sup posed that the snake had despatched them promptly. But the snake also was missing, and the closest search disclosed no explana tion of his absence. The mystery was partially solved when the caravan reached the capital of Nhulpar a few days later, and was con fronted at the very gates of the city with flaming placards announcing that THE GREAT AND ONLY WILKINS ACKNOWLEDGED EMPEROR OF THE OPHIDIAN WORLD WILL EXHIBIT FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY THE WONDROUS TWO-HEADED SNAKE SECURED AT AN ENORMOUS EXPENSE FROM THK MENAGERIE OF HER ROYAL HIGHNESS KAYENNA THE GREAT AND EXHIBITED BEFORE THE CROWNED HEADS OF ALL ASIA, EUROPE, AND AFRICA PRIOR TO HIS IMMEDIATE RETURN TO AMERICA CHAPTER IX. There are times when it is inexpedient, if not actually immoral, to kill the bediamonded clerk of a caravansary. Manco Capac. KAYENNA was at first deeply incensed on reading those ad- vertisementSj and would fain have invoked the assistance of the King of Nhulpar to punish the culprit ; but Shacabac sagely counselled her, saying: " Let it be. If the people of Nhulpar believe in this two-headed Snake, all the more will they reverence thee who art supposed to own others of the kind ; and meanwhile the terror of thy name shall be spread throughout the earth. But [he added to himself] I would that I had the knave who de frauded me of my trusty yataghan, or knew the secret whereby he made his cards fall as he willed. Great is Phi- 101 102 Her Majesty the King losophy, and marvellous is Science ; hut miraculous is this thing which the Giaours call Luck. Methinks it hath more to do with Science than with Philosophy. Would that the knave had stayed with me long enough to explain the strange mutations of that mysterious game which he calleth Po-kah ! " But ere this had come to pass, and while the caravan was crossing a sandy, waterless stretch of desert, Kayenna summoned the Sage to her side, and, smiling in a knowing way, asked, " Hast thou, in thy long experience, ever heard of a more difficult problem than that which confronts us, or a de vice whereby such a grave difficulty might be overcome ? " Shacabac had by this time conceived a profound respect for the genius of Kayenna; yet he could not imagine any stratagem by which she might ex tricate herself and him and the fortunes Her Majesty the King 105 of Ubikwi and Kopaul from the im pending dilemma. <c Nay," he an swered modestly, " I have heard of many, but of none so intricate as this. And I own that my heart weighs heavier with every step of our journey. Will not your Highness deign to tell her meanest slave how she purposes to carry us in safety to Nhulpar and home again, with our heads on our shoulders ? " " O Shacabac," laughed Kayenna, " thou art only a man, after all, and a bachelor at that. Hast never heard of even a man s outwitting another, not to speak of the endless resources of his superior, Woman ? " A little piqued at this sally, Shacabac replied : " Truly, I have known of some such ; but they were all as child s play compared with this coil. There was the case of the Ameer of Khali- Mazu, who, being secretly envious of the great Sultan Djambhori, sought to io6 Her Majesty the King compass his ruin by a gift of twoscore large and healthy elephants, the bare feeding of which for one twelvemonth would have emptied the royal ex chequer. To have sold or given away the animals would have been a grave discourtesy." " That was rather a pretty dilemma," admitted Kayenna. " How did Djam- bhori escape it? " "He escaped it," replied Shacabac, "by having the animals quietly de spatched, and their tusks made into keys for twoscore grand pianos, the which he sent as presents to the wives of the Ameer, thus nobly revenging the wrong that had been done him. The Ameer, struck with remorse on perceiving the magnanimity of his foe, committed suicide shortly after the arri val of the pianos, and while the harem yet resounded with the practice lessons of his devoted wives. The incident," added Shacabac, " attracted much atten- Her Majesty the King 107 tion at the time, and led to the strict laws since passed against the importa tion of elephants and pianos into Khali- Mazu." "Verily, the device was ingenious," commented Kayenna ; " but it hardly matches what is required of us in a few days hence. Hast thou ever heard of a youth so situated that he could not fill any office in the land, yet rising to the highest, and that, too, without awak ening the hostility of a single human being, notwithstanding the fierce jeal ousy which assails even those of lofty rank when they aim for rank yet higher?" " Never," answered Shacabac, " un less [bethinking himself of one remark able exception] unless it be that of Dar-Khos, a slave who once attained by a single stroke to boundless wealth, high rank, and length of days, merely by re fusing to obey the commands of his master, the great Sultan Al-Kali." io8 Her Majesty the King "That sounds interesting," said Kay- enna ; " and how did it happen ? " "In this wise," responded Shacabac. " The Sultan and his slave, travelling without escort, came to a deep and wide river ; and the Sultan ordered Dar-Khos to go forward and ford the stream. * Nay, answered the slave, with great humility, { the dog followeth his mas ter. Being pleased with which reply, the Sultan plunged into the stream, and presently sank in a quicksand, so that naught of him was visible save only his turban, in which he had hidden, for greater security, the crown jewels and other valuables. These, with great dif ficulty, did Dar-Khos rescue, and by judiciously investing them was enabled to secure the nomination and election to the vacant sultanship. And the moral thereof is, A drowned man dreadeth the water, but a wise one shunneth it from the beginning." " Thy tale is amusing," commented Her Majesty the King 109 Kayenna, " and the moral is as irrele vant as a moral should be ; but both are far and wide from the purport of my question : How is a poor, weak woman to soothe the chagrin and placate the anger of two mighty monarchs, when they find that nature hath been greater than herself and they together? " But Shacabac had naught to answer ; for, indeed, the same problem had been puzzling his head for many days, and making that head seem to fit very loosely on his shoulders. It was a sad business all round ; and he cursed the hour in which he had been tempted from his scholarly seclusion to aid in the wild schemes of a desperate woman ; saying to himself, " A bird on toast is worth two on a bonnet," which indeed is a truth that any child might compre hend. CHAPTER X. Surely, thou dost not expect strangers to pay for thy books. And, surely, thou wouldst not ask thy friends to buy them. Seek some other way of achiev ing wealth through letters. And let me know if thou findest it. The Pauper Poet. RIGHT royal was the welcome given to the caravan and its , illustrious passengers on reach ing the suburbs of the capital of Nhul- par. Imposing ranks of soldiery, horse and foot, lined both sides of the broad road for at least five miles without the gates. On entering the city, they found the streets carpeted with roses, hung on both sides with gorgeous banners, and canopied with evergreen arches spangled with flowers of every hue. Before coming into the presence of the king, they were treated to a rare feast of intellect. First, a chorus of ten thousand school-children, attired in no Her Majesty the King 113 white, sang a hymn of welcome, con sisting of three hundred and forty stanzas, each replete with a tender thought or dainty conceit. Then fol lowed an address from the chief men of the city, setting forth at much length the ancient friendship existing between the two nations, a friendship which was now about to be cemented more firmly than ever. With great felicity and originality of thought the speaker pointed out that the people of Ubikwi and the people of Nhulpar were of the same origin, speaking the same lan guage, that of Omar and Abdullah. " We must be friends," he said, " for the sake of our common blood, our common language, and the common Koran which teaches us all. A quarrel between two such peoples would be a crime against humanity." If the speaker overlooked the fact that such crimes had been committed once or twice already, with the enthu- ii4 Her Majesty the King siastic consent of both parties, that was neither here nor there. The sentence was well turned, and that is enough to expect of a state oration. Kayenna and her suite, most of them being mutes, listened with rare courtesy and patience to the addresses which fol lowed ; but Shacabac, who had not yet broken his fast, and it was now high noon, was visibly and audibly wearied by the ceremonies, and devoted one hundred and sixty-three pages of his inimitable diary to a scathing denunci ation of the vice of prolixity. There were addresses from The Incorporated Association of Muezzins ; The Imaum Brotherhood ; The Dancing Dervishes, who spoke as well as danced ; The Santon Society ; The Ancient Order of Arabian Knights, one thousand and one strong, each in turn relating a sprightly anec dote; Her Majesty the King 115 The Brethren of Backsheesh, numer ous and influential ; The Camel Drivers Association ; The Fraternity of Water Carriers ; Thirty-two ex-presidents of the So ciety for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, seated in a beautiful chariot drawn by a cream-white pony ; Citizens generally. Following these came interesting songs and recitations by local talent, all encored. Nor was the impatience of Shacabac relieved when a portly per sonage in spectacles was introduced by the presiding officer as " the far-famed and immortal Ben Haround, the Pauper Poet." "Truly, a tautological title," mur mured the Sage, as the bard, stepping forward, proceeded to unroll many lengths of an ode written for the occa sion, or for any occasion, and respect fully dedicated to the illustrious Prince of Ubikwi. The verses, unfortunately, n6 Her Majesty the King have not been preserved, notwithstand ing that the Poet presented to Kay- enna a copy beautifully woven in silk, and distributed among the throng sev eral thousand other copies printed on a cheaper material. Ben Haround s works had a large circulation during his lifetime ; but his zeal in disseminat ing those gems of poesy kept him con stantly poor, whence came his title of the Pauper Poet, to distinguish him from the opulent bards of other lands. This being the first visit of the Ubik- wians to Nhulpar, several youths in )razen armor, bearing tablets and writ ing instruments, pressed forward at this point, and, respectfully accosting the strangers, begged to be informed re garding their " impressions of the country." Happily, at this juncture, the King himself rode up, and averted an inter national quarrel by ordering the indis creet youths to be immersed in a caldron Her Majesty the King 117 of brine for the next twenty-four hours. Then, courteously welcoming his guests, he gave order that the feast should be spread. The King of Nhulpar sat at the head of the banquet table. On his left sat Kayenna ; beside her the lovely daugh ter of the King, and at her side the child whom all believed to be the son of Muley Mustapha. Shacabac was awarded a place on the opposite side of the table, next to the favorite spouse of Nhulpar, the mother of the intended bride. Women are not commonly ad mitted to share in the feasts of state; but exception had to be made in the case of Kayenna, and the others were allowed to keep her countenance, a provision entirely unnecessary with her. Shacabac vainly endeavored to catch her eye and signal a warning, when he perceived, to his dismay, that the Prin cess of Nhulpar was engaged in ani mated discourse with the potential n8 Her Majesty the King cause of all future trouble, the Prince of Ubikwi, who, in truth, bore his assumed honors with becoming gallan try. Never, indeed, had a genuine prince carried himself with more deb onair grace. The illusion was perfect, so that even hardened old courtiers exchanged fur tive winks and nudges, as who should say, " Our coming King hath a merry way with the women, and will not lose his bride for lack of brave wooing ! " Meanwhile Kayenna and the King kept up a gay conversation. The royal mother beamed approval on the young people, and indulged in the original re mark to the Sage that " Heaven made and hath matched them," whereat Sha- cabac, stifling a groan, smiled a courtier s smile, and murmured assent. After the feast there were speeches, dignified, gracious, affectionate, and not too brief; but Shacabac had broken his fast, and feared naught that fate might Her Majesty the King 119 bring until until it brought the worst, discovery, discomfiture, and ruin. " The nuptials will be celebrated at sunset," said Kayenna to him as the wedding dinner ended, and the ladies retired to their apartments to prepare for the great festivities. " But, Great Allah," he exclaimed in horror, " do you know what then ? Unless something happens, we are lost, thou, I, the gentle Princess, thy daughter " " Have no fear, good Shacabac," she replied smilingly : " something will hap pen ere thou knowest it." Again she smiled, the smile of confidence or of fatuity, he could not tell which, and moved away in the bridal train. And something did happen, some thing not down on the programme of King or Queen, Sage or Soothsayer. As the last of the retinue disappeared behind the hangings, a trumpet-blast was heard without the court, and a mes- 120 Her Majesty the King senger, who had evidently ridden in hot haste, was admitted to the royal pres ence. "Your Majesty," he said, bending low, " I bring evil news. There is trouble in Ubikwi. The great Pasha Muley Mustapha is besieged in his palace by a rebel rabble, led by a scurvy Soothsayer, and, unless help be sent to him forthwith, woe to him and his household, and to all the friends of Ubikwi ! " The King of Nhulpar, as we have said, was a warrior who loved the music of battle. The sound of clashing arms was sweet to his ears, and the savor of blood was as fragrance to his nostrils. The call to action came at an oppor tune moment ; for the preparations of the past weeks had been a burden to his soul, which liked not the effeminate adjuncts of matrimony. " Ha, sayst thou so ? " he exclaimed. " Then, by the beard of the Prophet, Her Majesty the King 121 thy words are welcome. I would fain see how this stripling, my son-in-law and heir to be, can bear himself in the lists of war. He seemeth over-confi dent in those of love, for one of such stern stuff as the King of Nhulpar should be. Here, slave, go to the apartments of the Prince of Ubikwi, and say to him that the King beseeches his company on a pleasant joust. Bid the wedding guests await our return, which may be anon or later." " Allah help our Kayenna now and her bantling ! " exclaimed Shacabac to himself, as the warlike preparations went on. " I can but join the caval cade, though little stomach have I for blows and blood. Nathless, I think that my head will be safer at Ubikwi than before the jaws of this battle- loving king. Verily, the sandal-maker should stick to his sandal-wood, and the man of wisdom to his preaching, leaving to fools the dangerous work of practising the same." CHAPTER XL Some men borrow books ; some men steal books ; and others beg presentation copies from the author. Ben Haround. THE courier told only the truth. Dark and dangerous times had befallen poor, old Muley Mus- tapha in his lonely palace of Ubikwi. For days he had wandered disconsolate through the zenana, missing the pres ence of Kayenna, which had ever been as the cooling east wind to his fevered brow; missing Shacabac, whose words of wisdom had so often wooed him to repose ; missing Al Choppah and his diverting bowstring and scimitar that had enlivened many a long hour. He did not miss little Muley ; for, of a truth, he had seldom laid eyes upon the offspring whom he unjustly blamed as the cause of all his woes. And now, 122 THE. ORATOR. AM A- RAY Her Majesty the King 125 when he strayed into the child s sleep ing-room, he noted with a shocked sense of the incongruous how it was decorated with the toys and the arms of virility, ghastly relics of the futile attempt to deceive his people and the people of two greater nations ! "If she had never been born! If she had had the good taste to die any time during the past miserable eighteen years ! If that villanous old Sooth sayer " Here he was startled by a voice at his elbow, " Your Highness was pleased to allude to me?" It was the new Soothsayer, Badeg, looking, if possible, more impudently familiar than ever. Muley Mustapha plucked up a spirit. " No, I was not alluding to you ; though I was thinking of a villanous Soothsayer an old one who went to his reward long ago. But what in the name of Eblis is it to you ? " 126 Her Majesty the King " Nothing, oh, nothing," was the bland reply. Then, after a pause : " Perchance your Highness was think ing of the great Astrologer Kibosh, who rose from the sorry condition of a beg garly carter to the highest favor in his master s eyes because of a secret which he once discovered. He went to his reward many years ago, as your High ness hath said ; but his secret died not with him, and it is said to be even more wondrous than that possessed by the Wise Man who could change base metal into shining gold, inasmuch as the possessor of it hath no need to buy even the base metal, for " here the speaker paused and looked significantly at the Pasha " he findeth it right be fore him and ready to his hand." Muley Mustapha, trying to dis semble and not succeeding very well, answered with assumed carelessness : " Truly, that must have been a remark able man. I do not remember having Her Majesty the King 127 heard of him before. What didst thou say he was when he led an honest life ? " " He was a poor carter," replied the Soothsayer, " and, though he worked hard every day, and was very thrifty in his habits, yet he found himself grow ing poorer day by day and year by year. For he had a large family, con sisting of seven sons and six daughters, whose respective ages were 13, 12, n, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and i. It was no easy task to feed those thirteen jaws, or I should say pairs of jaws, without counting those of himself and his patient wife. " Howbeit, it happened that Kibosh, on a certain Friday morning, awoke re joicing that it was the day of rest, yet murmuring that, such being the fact, he knew there would be for him no work that day whereby to earn food for the morrow. He sat up in his couch, yawned, sighed, arose, and put on his 128 Her Majesty the King garments. Then, after saying his morn ing prayers and making his scanty toilet, he sat down to a humble meal of black bread and dates. The bread was old and hard, and the dates were dry. Kibosh groaned as he chewed the uninviting food between his two-and- thirty teeth." " Had he two-and- thirty teeth ? " in terrupted the Pasha. " Truly, he had no more," replied the narrator. " It is the exact number pos sessed by all men of ripe years, unless, indeed, they have lost one or more." " Then," said the Pasha, " what was there remarkable in his having that number? " " Nothing," was the answer, in a tone of scarcely veiled impertinence. " Only / am telling the story ; and I am trying to tell it in the only proper style, which is the Realistic. Is it your Highness s wish that I proceed ? " "By all means," said Muley Mus- Her Majesty the King 129 tapha ; " but, before going any further, how many hands had this Kibosh ? " " I was about to come to that," re turned the Soothsayer, tranquilly. " He had two hands, on each of which were one thumb and four fingers. He had likewise two feet, with five toes on each. This being a true story, I will not at tempt to conceal the fact that he was furthermore blessed with two eyes, the like number of ears, one nose and mouth, and as many hairs on his head and chin as might be ; for these I did not try to enumerate. " Having finished his frugal meal and smoked his chibouk, Kibosh went to the mosque, like a good Mussulman. His wife, the faithful Zaidee, remained at home. She had many things to do, attending to the wants of her numerous offspring, preparing the mid-day meal, and arranging the thousand little details of her house for the day. Moreover, she knew that her attire was hardly meet 130 Her Majesty the King for the eyes of strangers. Her next- door neighbor, Ayesha, the wife of Hassan, the porter, had but the day be fore called on her, attired in a new yash mak, which was a sore trial to the pa tience of Zaidee, it having cost not less than fifty piastres at the bazaar kept by Solyman, the one-eyed Hebrew, oppo site the fountain adjacent to the house of Amrou, the camel-driver." Here the Pasha, stifling a yawn, asked wearily, " How many eyes didst thou say the Hebrew dog had ? " " One, your Highness. The other, I believe, was lost in consequence of" "It matters not how it was lost," said the Pasha, hastily. "Allah be thanked, it was lost! and thy story hath some novelty. Go on." " For these reasons Zaidee remained at home while Kibosh went to the mosque. As it happened, he met on the way none other than his neighbor, the porter Hassan; and the two fell Her Majesty the King 131 to talking of many things, such as the weather, the hardness of the times, and the great cost of bread and dates, and other such subjects. " Even as they were speaking, they were accosted by a poor cripple, who beseeched alms of them in the name of Allah. Alas! replied Kibosh. f I am but a poor man, with a large family, and can give thee naught save my prayers. But Hassan smiled a little haughtily, and, pulling out his wallet, displayed it full of shining gold and silver pieces. As he saw the eyes of Kibosh fixed upon it in wonder, he hastily closed the wallet, and said, f I, too, am but a poor man/ and gave the beggar naught. But, when they had passed on, Kibosh spoke to Hassan, saying, O Hassan ! but now thou didst complain of thy poverty ; and, lo ! thou hast a purse full of gold and sil ver/ " It is not mine, said Hassan, in confusion : it is my wife s. 132 Her Majesty the King " c But thy wife is as poor as thy self/ retorted Kibosh, severely ; for he knew that Ayesha was only the daugh ter of old Cassim, the tent-maker, who was as poor as any man in the quarter, and indeed lived partly on the bounty of his son-in-law. " * Nay, then, said Hassan. c I will confess that I found this purse on the Square last week, and know not who its owner may be. " c The Square, said Kibosh, f has been closed for the past ten days by order of the Caliph, as thou dost for get ; and neither could any man enter it to lose or to find a purse. Hassan, thou art a prevaricator; and I must denounce thee to the Cadi as a thief unless " ( Unless what, good neighbor Ki bosh ? cried Hassan, in terror. * Surely } thou wouldst not denounce and ruin thine old friend ! " Nay, said Kibosh $ but I would Her Majesty the King 133 first know how thou earnest into pos session of so vast a sum of money, and next I would ask thee for a loan of, say, one-half thereof. " Hassan thereupon, being in terror of his life, confided to Kibosh that he had become acquainted with a State Secret to divulge which would be dis astrous, while so long as it remained unspoken it was a source of liberal revenue to him. "As soon as Kibosh heard this, he said, c O Hassan, it is now some seven teen years, or maybe eighteen, that I have known thee and thy good wife, Ayesha, and thy father-in-law, Cassim, not to mention thy son Karib and thy daughter " " Perish Kibosh and Hassan and all their tribe ! " shrieked the Pasha, leap ing to his feet. " Gehenna be their portion and thine, thou babbling im postor ! What hath all this to do with me?" 134 Her Majesty the King "What hath it to do with thee?" answered the Astrologer. " Much, very much, with thee and thine, and with the people of Ubikwi, and the people cf Kopaul, and the people of Nhulpar, when they learn that the secret known to the dead Hassan (for he died very suddenly that same day) and confided to Kibosh (also an un happy victim of Azrael s visitation) is now my secret. Does wish to hear it ? Or would your Highness prefer that I tell it in the market-place, that the child thou palmest off on the world as thy c son is really " Muley Mustapha was a meek man. His critics said behind his back that he was a hen-pecked man. The whole world knew that he was an old and feeble man. But the blood of Ali ran in his shrivelled veins ; and it went boil ing at the insolence of this red-headed beggar of a star-gazer, who dared beard him in his own harem. His hand Her Majesty the King 135 leaped for his sword, and found only an empty scabbard ; for the peaceable old Pasha had long ceased to carry the deadly scimitar, which he had once been wont to wield in the forefront of battle. His eyes fell upon the only weapon in sight, a razor (he afterward wondered what use there could have been for it in the harem) ; and, seizing it, he shouted in a voice of thunder, " Out of this, fortune-telling dog, liar, and humbug, ere I cut the false tongue out of thy insolent throat ! " The Soothsayer fled from the palace in terror ; but, on gaining the street, he found his voice again, and began shrieking aloud that the Pasha had be come mad and was threatening the lives of all his friends. " Know ye, O people of Ubikwi," he shouted, " that the old man s sins have found him out; and Heaven hath punished him by striking him with madness, because he hath sinned 136 Her Majesty the King against the truth by passing off as his son a female child born unto him eigh teen years ago ! " A large crowd was speedily attracted by the cries of the Soothsayer ; and they began saying one to another : "Truly, this holy man cannot be mis taken. The child Muley hath more of the woman than of the man about him, and no eyes have ever seen him en gaged in any manly sport." And the elders, prompted by insinuations pre viously sent out by the Soothsayer and his henchmen, began to remember that the former Soothsayer had disappeared mysteriously, together with the Physi cian, on the very day of little Muley s birth. Wherefore there arose a great clamor from the multitude assembled before the palace; and the old Pasha would have fared badly that day, had it not been for the prompt action of a veteran Mame luke and a dozen or two followers, who, Her Majesty the King 137 riding out of the postern gate as if on patrol duty, set their horses, first at a gentle canter and then at a sharp gallop, right into the midst of the throng, speedily dispersing the unorganized crowd. " Hark ye," said the mustached Cap tain, as his Arabian charger reared on his haunches so that his fore feet almost touched the shoulders of the Sooth sayer, who fell back some paces in haste. " I know nothing of your stars or your prophecies ; but this is the exercise ground of my troop, and you have spoiled our manoeuvres to-day by being in the way. Next time we shall not abate our speed because of any dirty carcass in our path. Halt! Form fours ! Trot ! Gallop ! " And down the esplanade at full speed and back again went the handful of horse men, whose simple creed was obedience to orders. Tradition hath it that the grim Cap- 138 Her Majesty the King tain of the troop was a renegade Chris tian, whose sole redeeming qualities were that he was loyal to the flag which he followed for the time, and that he dearly loved a fight. The mob was, like all mobs, discon certed at first by the organized force of a disciplined soldiery ; and, after a few vain attempts to carry the palace by storm, it settled down to besiege and starve out the garrison, a decision which vastly pleased the Pasha and his Mameluke Captain, who shrewdly sur mised that relief would not fail to come from some quarter if only delay could be gained. The palace was well sup plied with provisions, for the Pasha loved good cheer and plenty of it. Could they but hold their own for a few weeks, the garrison might laugh at the efforts of the enemy. CHAPTER XII. In time of war begin to prepare for it. The Corn- pleat Art of Logistics, by Tang Kee. WHEN the mighty Sultan of Kopaul heard of the straits into which his son-in-law was driven, he lost no time in begin ning to get ready to prepare to fly, metaphorically speaking, to his assist ance. Age had somewhat chilled the ardor of his blood ; and in this sudden crisis he sorely missed the counsels of his lamented spouse, Paprikah, from whom the wise Kayenna had inherited her rare firmness of character. In the course of many years of conjugal con troversy he had learned to respect her vigorous intellect and fluency of ex pression ; but, after her melancholy loss, he seemed to lack in some degree the promptitude of action in emergency 140 Her Majesty the King which had been so conspicuous a feat ure of his government during her life time. For this lack he made up by a fecundity and loudness of speech which impressed all who had not the happi ness of his intimate acquaintance. With him, as he was wont to say, it was " a word and a blow." His critics sneered that the terms were synony mous, but they did not understand the latent resources of the old warrior. When the time for action came, he displayed his ability in a way that sur prised them and all the world. In order not to be embarrassed by the presence of professional soldiers, who are ever an annoyance to an adminis tration, he permitted a thousand of his veterans to proceed at once with Ben Zoin to the scene of action, and then set himself to the more serious work of planning a great and glorious campaign, summoning for the purpose his Minis ter of War, in whom he had the high est confidence. THE /ATM ART AT THE Her Majesty the King 143 Between them they formulated a martial policy which had the unique distinction of being alike agreeable to themselves, to the army contractors, and even to the enemy. Some old- fogy soldiers, it is true, objected to it on the last ground ; but, as most of them died under its operation, their voices were not long heard. A board of strategy, composed of eminent individuals who, having no ex perience, could have no prejudices in military affairs, resolved upon a line of action unprecedented in warfare. Three corps were mobilized and de spatched, after due deliberation, to the scene of hostilities. The first con sisted of raw levies, hastily organized, but ably ofEcered by friends and rela tives of the government, men who had distinguished themselves either by po litical services or by meritorious con sanguinity. The latter were, so to speak, " born " soldiers. 144 Her Majesty the King This first corps was sent to the front by a special caravan. Their arms and ammunition were forwarded, some time later, by a separate route. A third car avan, following yet another line of march, transported the food, tents, for age, and medical supplies. By this ingenious arrangement the board of strategy had reason to trust that all three caravans might reach their destination in safety and good condi tion for effective work. " Divide and conquer" was the motto. If the sol diers should be captured, it was rea soned, their capture would be of no value to the enemy without the arms, provisions, and so forth, as would also the capture of the latter without the former. Certain conservative persons, having a stake in the country, suggested that it would be more prudent to keep the ammunition and commissariat trains at home until after the arrival of the Her Majesty the King 145 troops at the front, so that nothing more valuable than lives might be lost in case of any disaster ; but there are captious people who will criticise the wisest works of man, even historical works of the most transcendent merit, which a modest author may not name. The board of strategy, having a more than official interest in army contracts, disregarded such criticisms, saying, properly enough, that it were better to lose material which could be replaced, at government expense, than to hazard the prospects of future contracts. Wherein they showed a commendable forethought and put to shame their censors, who did not hold any contracts, present or prospective. The Sultan had great confidence also in the reserves, composed of various military and civil organizations distin guished for the splendor of their uni forms and the vociferousness of their patriotism in time of peace. As it hap- 146 Her Majesty the King pened, their reserve was so pronounced and shrinking in its character that it kept them from thrusting themselves to the front in time of war. Patriotic Orders, which had vowed to die for their country many a time, did not forget their vows when the dread ordeal came, but, on the contrary, with a fortitude unequalled in history, chose the most lingering death that a patriot might suffer, and voted unanimously to die of old age for the land which they loved so well and so wisely. For, as they truly said : The ignorant soldier goes and dies for his country, and thereby ends his usefulness to the coun try ; but we who stay at home live to devote ourselves to the country s ser vice in any capacity, however lucrative. Bismillah ! they were wise in their gen eration. So it was that the mighty Sultan of Kopaul went to war vicariously, as all good sovereigns do, and, when it was Her Majesty the King 147 over, asked for no greater reward than a seaport and coaling-station in the Sahara, where there was no sea and where a coaling-station was as super fluous as it would be in Gehenna. En sued to his country much glory and a pension list, which was the wonder and the envy of the world ; for, al though the glory was evanescent, the pension list endured for generations, and the seaport and coaling-station served to " extend the sphere of Kopaulian in fluence," and thus distribute the bur den of taxes, even as a prudent mer chant on the brink of bankruptcy enlarges the number and amount of his obligations, on the principle that in numbers there is safety. CHAPTER XIII. Every nation has just the government for which its people are fitted : at least, that is what is said by the rulers who are piously engaged in misgoverning it. Manco Capac. THE Captain of Mamelukes re pented later that he had not given his charger the treat of trampling the internal economy out of the Soothsayer, when, on looking out of an embrasure of the palace, he descried a vast mob approaching, headed by the same Soothsayer, and brandishing every sort of nondescript weapon, while they shouted in angry tones: "Death to the False Pasha! Death to the Impostor who has de ceived the People with a False Heir! Death to the foreign Mameluke who insults our Astrologer ! " "That means me," said the Mame- 148 1 AM PRJNCC Her Majesty the King 151 hike, grimly. " And it seems to mean business. I wish I had Ben Zoin and a dozen of his rough riders behind this gate to-day. By Allah ! we d teach those carrion to sing another song. What is your Highness s wish?" sa luting, as he spoke, the aged form of Muley Mustapha. " Shall we comply with the petition of your loyal subjects, and offer them our heads as a guaran tee of good faith? or let them come and take them, if they can?" Muley Mustapha, for answer, only extended his hand, which the grizzled warrior took and kissed. " I take it your Highness does not mean to part with his head for nothing? " A new fire shone in the eyes of Muley Mustapha. "What my brave guard does, that and no less will I do," he answered. " Let the dogs come on, if they dare ! " And the dogs came. Did ever a 152 Her Majesty the King pack of hounds fear to face the wounded stag at bay ? But dearly did they pay for their temerity. For a full hour the unequal combat raged in front of the feeble gates of the palace. Foremost at every breach the bare white locks of Muley Mustapha were seen, as he wielded his trusty scim itar and hewed down, one after another, every foeman who dared face his flam ing countenance. First in every sortie loomed the gigantic figure of the Cap tain of Mamelukes, who seemed to bear a charmed life, and to escape death by the very eagerness with which he courted it, as sometimes happens to champions in the milder domain of courtship and love. Nevertheless, the fortune of war had gone ill with the dauntless few against the mighty force of numbers, had not assailants and assailed been startled, at the very crisis of the conflict, by the loud notes of a bugle and the sound of Her Majesty the King 153 trampling hoofs in the distant streets, whence presently there emerged, in the splendid panoply of war, a thousand of the body-guard of the Sultan of Kopaul, led on by Ben Zoin, the gal lant champion of Ubikwi. A ringing cheer went up from the worn defenders of the palace at sight of the relief. A wild cry escaped from the besiegers at the same ; but the false Soothsayer, raising aloft a green banner, the Prophet s sacred ensign, exhorted his followers to fight in the name of Islam. The fanatical appeal gave new heart to the rebels, so that not even the stout lances of Ben Zoin could have overcome the hostile array, had there not appeared at the further gate of the city a new cohort of cavalry, led by a plumed knight, whose face no man recognized, as he and his fol lowers, with levelled spears, thundered on the rear of the rebel horde. The rout of the besiegers was com- 154 Her Majesty the King plete. The greater part threw down their arms and cried for quarter or sought safety in the alleys and lanes adjacent. The unknown did not draw rein until he was face to face with the Soothsayer, against whose neck he levelled the point of his lance. " By what right, thou scoundrel," he thundered, " dost thou levy war on the just and mighty Pasha of Ubikwi? Answer, knave, ere my steel find an answer in thy throat ! " Thus forced into a corner, the in solent Soothsayer, trusting to his sacred office, made answer : " By the right of my divine duty. I am a Soothsayer, and know that the Pasha of Ubikwi hath deceived his subjects and offended against high Heaven by palming off as his son the female child born to his house eighteen years agone." "And, by the divine right of my birth," responded the knight, " / know thee to be a liar and a knave. Look Her Majesty the King 155 at me. I AM PRINCE MULEY, born unto the house of my father eighteen years ago, and neither a female child nor a male impostor, like thee. Die, dog, with the lie in thy throat ! " With that he set spurs to his horse, and the point of his lance came out through the back of the Soothsayer s neck. Whereat all the people cried out, as with one voice, " Long live Prince Muley, the son of his noble father, Muley Mustapha ! " But Muley Mustapha merely gasped in wonder, as not comprehending the simple way in which the truth had been witnessed and error confuted, as, indeed, a wiser man might have wondered, had he not been told the explanation given in the next and con cluding chapter. CHAPTER XIV. This Book is a Mirror wherein the Wise Man seeth Wisdom but the Fool seeth Folly. Shacabac. uT DON T think that I quite un derstand," began Muley Mus- tapha, when he found himself alone with his gifted spouse for a few moments before dinner, and while the other dignitaries were pleasantly en gaged in restoring tranquillity to the realm by superintending the decapita tion of the disaffected. " You mean that you don t quite understand that you think," interposed the good lady, sweetly. " Well, I will explain. The child whom you wick edly designed to bring up in a life of shame and turbulence was not, as you thought, a girl, but a boy ! " I determined, as I think I told you at the time, to save the innocent being 156 ar,or, Her Majesty the King 159 from the contamination of a wicked world and the evil example of an un worthy sire. The Physician whom you ruthlessly put to death consented to the pious deception, for which I have ever revered his memory. He was a worthy man, and understood my nervous system better than any leech that I have ever known. Another kind of husband would have appre ciated his merits, but let that pass. As for the old Soothsayer, he deserved his doom for lacking faith in his own predictions. I regret not his death. No government can be conducted safely unless its members be able to convince themselves and others that with them all wisdom dieth. Frequent changes of administration, save in favor of our own party, are disastrous to the welfare of any country. " Henceforth place your trust in me ; and I will see to it that all official prophecies come out correctly, though it cost a new soothsayer every week. 160 Her Majesty the King "I leave you now," she added, "to prepare my daughter-in-law for her bridal, and to instruct her in the proper way of managing a husband. I fear me much that the present Queen of Nhulpar is sadly lacking in decision of character. His Majesty the King, I am told, keepeth State secrets from her ears, a great error on the part of a dutiful spouse." It was even as the good Kayenna had said. Young Muley Mustapha was a genuine Prince, with all his father s old-time courage, re-enforced by a strain of firmness inherited from his noble mother. The rebel horde, who had taken up the false Soothsayer s taunt that the youth was effeminate, no longer repeated the insult, partly be cause the lad had proved his manhood on the field, but chiefly because, after Al Choppah had finished his work, not one of them was left to talk indis creetly, nor, indeed, to talk at all. Her Majesty the King 161 Despite, or perhaps because of, the harem seclusion in which he had been reared, the youth was more than com monly free from bashfulness in the presence of women ; and his own harem (for he did not copy his sire s monogamous example) was ruled by him in right royal fashion. "In num bers is safety," was his sagacious maxim. Yet, because of the mystery surrounding his youth, he was ever known throughout three kingdoms as " Her Majesty the King." When the aged Pasha went to his account, a few years later, everybody in official position said, as with one voice, that, with the exception of his illustrious successor, he was the wisest and best ruler that had ever reigned in Ubikwi. The same had been said of his sire and his grandsire and his great- grandsire, so that it was evident that virtue and wisdom were hereditary in that noble family, as they are in all reigning dynasties everywhere. 162 Her Majesty the King Kayenna lived to see her son mount successively the thrones of Ubikwi, Kopaul, and Nhulpar, and to super vise the education of a large and in teresting family of children and grand children, dying at the last of a tetanus superinduced by the arduous labor of umpiring a debate on " Woman Suf frage." Shacabac lived to a ripe old age. Of his latter years his biographer says, "Allah had granted to him length of days and the divine faculty of repose, so that, while saying much, he thought but little, and worked hardly at all." When his mental faculties had be come sufficiently impaired, the gal lant King of Nhulpar appointed him Regius Professor of Political Econ omy in the National University, a position which he filled with great credit for many years. By his thought ful lectures and essays, " Patriotism Another Name for Selfishness," "A Her Majesty the King 163 Nation s Debt a Nation s Wealth," " Our Country always Wrong," and especially by his erudite monograph on " Finance," so profound that not even the ablest minds could comprehend it, his fame spread throughout all lands, and made him the envy of philosophers all over the earth. His stately monument bears the simple motto which governed him through life, "LOVE THYSELF: SO SHALL THY AFFECTION BE RETURNED." A book of poetry worth while. POEMS OF THE TOWN By ERNEST McGAFFEY IS mo. Klexlble Leather. $1.26 The following are but a few extracts from many reviews received on Poems of the Town. Among this chorus of praise there has not been one dissent ing voice. " For terse English, for picturesque and appropriate imagery, for keen and faithful portraiture Mr. McGaffey has no superior. And there will be many to say that this book entitles him to recognition as the interpreter of his age." Chicago Inter-Ocean. " It is doubtful if any American poet has written a finer, more humane, more nobly and righteously wrathful outburst against the maladies of civilization than the poem in this collection entitled Laocoon of the Town" St. Louis Mirror. "His lyrics have that touch of universality which distinguishes true poetry from mere verse. It is not too much to say that Poems of the Town are certain to take a place among the best examples of American poetry." From Editorial in the Chicago Chronicle. RICHARD G. BADGER & CO. (Inc.) Publishers 172 Tremont St., Boston THE SON OF A TORY A Romance by CLINTON SCOLLARD With a frontispiece. Cover design in colors. 12 mo. $1.50. This new story by Mr. Scollard is a book of good fighting and true love a book to read from start to finish with bright eyes and tingling cheeks. THE SON OF A TORY is a romance of the Revolution, the scene being laid in the Mohawk Valley and elsewhere during the summer of 1777. Mr. Scollard writes of this always fascin ating period of our history from anew viewpoint and with wonderfully clear insight and verve. It is a book which, if all the qualities that make a good book are to be considered, ought to achieve a popularity greatly in excess of some recent phenomenal successes. RICHARD G. BADGER & CO. (Inc.) Publishers 172 Tremont St., Boston FOUR DAYS OF GOD By HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD With about 90 illustrations. Bound in white and gold and purple. Small 4 to. In Press It is quite impossible to describe adequately the surpassing charm of this book. We can say simply that it will appeal to every lover of nature who sees in her manifold beauties the living glories of the work of God. No one can write more beautiful or sparkling prose than Mrs. Spofford and never has she been so absolutely charming as in Four Days of God. The book has about 90 illustrations by Miss A. C. Tomlinson which catch the spirit of the text to perfection and with the harmonious print and paper and binding make the book a little gem. RICHARD G. BADGER & CO. (Inc.) Publishers 172 Tremont St., Boston. When Half-Gods Go A NOVEL BY JULIA MAGRUDER With frontispiece. 12 mo. 330 pp. $1.25 A new novel by Miss Magruder is always sure of its welcome and When Half-Gods Go will find for her even a wider audience than she has hitherto en joyed. It is a fascinating story of social and musical life in New York, full of human interest and those happy touches Miss Magruder can do so well. The title is from Emerson s lines " When half-gods go the gods arrive." RICHARD G. BADGER & CO. (Inc.) Publishers 172 Tremont St., Boston IRISH MIST AND SUNSHINE A BOOK OF BALLADS BY REV. JAMES B. BOLLARD (Sliav-na-mon) With an introduction by William O Brien, M.P. Small quarto. $1.50 This is a book of ringing Irish ballads that will stir the heart of every lover of true poetry. " Here and there a verse may be as frankly un adorned as the peasant cabins themselves in their homely cloaks of thatch, but every line rings true to life and home and with the tone, as heartmoving as the Angelus which holds Millet s peasants in its spell," from Mr. O Brien s intro duction. "Father Bollard s ballads have all the fire and dash of Kipling s, with a firmer poetic touch " says Mr. Nathan Haskell Dole. RICHARD G. BADGER & CO. (Inc.) Publishers 172 Tremont St., Boston OUTDOORS A BOOK OF WOODS, FIELDS AND MARSHLAND By ERNEST McGAFFEY I*arge 8 vo. A-bout 3OO pp. $1.5O Among all the books that have been written on nature none have possessed in so remarkable a degree, the sympathy, the Druid hunger, the affinity with Pan which alone gives writings on nature an adequate charm. Outdoors is not a study of nature, it is in sympathy with it, and almost alone among American nature writers Mr. McGaffey gives his work atmosphere. Out doors, like its title is big (both in merit and size), and inclusive. Its 32 chapters range from The Marshes in April to In Winter Woods. It is a book which once seen every lover of nature will be impatient to possess. RICHARD G. BADGER & CO. (Inc.) Publishert 172 Tremont St., Boston By GRACE LOUISE COOK, 99 12 mo. 340pp. $1.50 This thoroughly delightful volume is made up of seven stories : Clorinda, President Jefferson, The Trial of Professor Lamont, Submerged, A Lyrical Interlude, Sir Tobys Career, Initiated Into Love. Miss Cook s selection of characters has been unusually general. Instead of taking them all from the distinctly leading students, she has chosen from every type, giving in this way the truest estimate of what life is at Wellesley. A former senior president says of these stories : " They are really good and the local color is perfect" "By Wellesley girls the country over this book of Wellesley Stories will be hailed with joy." Worcester Spy. RICHARD G. BADGER & CO. (Inc.) Publishers 172 Tremont St., Boston THE LYRIC LIBRARY A series of little books of verse in which it is the publishers aim to include the best work of the representative poets of America. The volumes are in size a small 16 mo., handsomely printed and bound in full flexible leather, stamped in gold. The price is $1.25 each. POEMS OF THE TOWN by Ernest Me Gaff ey. SONG-SURF by Gale Young Rice. ONE DAY AND ANOTHER by Madison Cawein. FOR THINKING HEARTS by John Vance Cheney. IN THE HARBOR OF HOPE by Mary E. Blake. OTHERS IN PREPARATION. RICHARD G. BADGER & CO. (Inc.) Publishers 172 Tremont St., Boston There is a laugh on every page. N. Y. Herald. I HER MAJESTY THE KING A ROMANCE OF THE HAREM BY JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE With 1 6 full page pictures, and an elaborate cover design in many colors. 12 mo. $1.25 Fifth Edition Just Ready As Mr. Roche modestly says in his Forewarn ing, "This volume, containing the surprising adventures of the good Kayennaand the marvel lous wisdom of Shacabac, the wayfarer, needeth no apology. Its merits are as many as its words." And the reviewers have heartily agreed that "there is a laugh on every page." Published over two years ago, Her Majesty the King is more popular today than at any time since its publication. It is plainly not only a book to read but to recommend to your friends. RICHARD G. BADGER & CO. (Inc.) Publishers 172 Tremont St., Boston Date Due .S.A. CAT. NO. 24 161 000 550 601