Adventure stories; Islands -- Fiction; Journalists -- Fiction; Love stories; Science fiction; South Pacific Ocean -- Fiction
She met his eyes and, of her own will, she drew his face down to
hers.
"No matter what," she answered. So they went together toward the
chamber which they had both forgotten.
When they reached the Hall of Kings they heard King Otho's
voice--suave, mellow, of perfect enunciation:
"--some one," the king was concluding, "who can tell this
considerably better than I. And it seems to me singularly fitting
that the recognition of the part eternally played by the 'possible'
be temporarily deferred while we listen to--I dislike to use the
word, but shall I say--the facts."
It seemed to St. George when he stood beside the dais, facing that
strange, eager multitude with his strange unbelievable story upon
his lips--the story of the finding of the king--as if his own voice
were suddenly a part of all the gigantic incredibility. Yet the
divinely real and the fantastic had been of late so fused in his
consciousness that he had come to look upon both as the
normal--which is perhaps the only sane view. But how could he tell
to others the monstrous story of last night, and hope to be
believed?
None the less, as simply as if he had been narrating to
Chillingworth the high moment of a political convention, St. George
told the people of Yaque what had happened in that night in the room
of the tombs with that mad old Malakh whom they all remembered. It
came to him as he spoke that it was quite like telling to a field of
flowers the real truth about the wind of which they might be
supposed to know far more than he; and yet, if any one were to tell
the truth about the wind who would know how to listen? He was not
amazed that, when he had done, the people of Yaque sat in a profound
silence which might have been the silence of innocent amazement or
of utter incredulity.
But there was no mistaking the face of Prince Tabnit. Its cool
tolerant amusement suddenly sent the blood pricking to St. George's
heart and filled him with a kind of madness. What he did was the
last thing that he had intended. He turned upon the prince, and his
voice went cutting to the farthest corner of the hall:
"Men and women of Yaque," he cried, "I accuse your prince of the
knowledge that can take from and add to the years of man at will. I
accuse him of the deliberate and criminal use of that knowledge to
take King Otho from his throne!"
St. George hardly knew what effect his words had. He saw only
Olivia, her hands locked, her lips parted, looking in his face in
anguish; and he saw Prince Tabnit smile. Prince Tabnit sat upon the
king's left hand, and he leaned and whispered a smiling word in the
ear of his sovereign and turned a smiling face to Olivia upon her
father's right.
"I know something of your American newspapers, your Majesty," the
prince said aloud, "and these men are doing their part excellently,
excellently."
"What do you mean, your Highness?" demanded St. George curtly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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