THE KINGS OF THE EAST A Romance of the Near Future BY SYDNEY C. GRIER AUTHOR OF ‘LIKE ANOTHER HELEN,’ ‘A CROWNED QUEEN,’ ETC., ETC. (_Third in the Balkan Series_) WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCCCC _All Rights reserved_ CONTENTS. I. THE MOVEMENT AND THE MAN. II. FIRING THE FIRST SHOT. III. IN SILVER SLIPPERS. IV. A DISTURBING ELEMENT. V. THE CROWN MATRIMONIAL. VI. _DANAOS DONA FERENTES_. VII. BREAKING WITH THE PAST. VIII. “A KIND OF WILD JUSTICE.” IX. VERSIONS DIFFER. X. TAKING COUNSEL WITH BABES. XI. EASTWARD HO! XII. THE CHURCH MILITANT AND ORTHODOX. XIII. A GROUND OF HOPE. XIV. NO PLACE OF REPENTANCE. XV. A FOOL’S ERRAND. XVI. THE HOUSE OF THE LADY ZENOBIA. XVII. FACE TO FACE. XVIII. THE PENALTY OF GREATNESS. XIX. THE BREAKING-POINT. XX. _REDINTEGRATIO AMORIS_. XXI. A NEW FACTOR. XXII. THE HISTORY OF AN EVENING. XXIII. MAN AND WIFE. XXIV. “THE BITTER CLOSE OF ALL.” THE KINGS OF THE EAST. CHAPTER I. THE MOVEMENT AND THE MAN. It was a brilliant afternoon in late spring, and Vindobona was taking its pleasure joyously out of doors, as is its wont. The many parks and gardens of the city were crowded with holiday-makers in every variety of national costume and speaking the tongues of all the earth, and in the boulevards of the Ringstrasse a well-dressed throng made the pavements almost impassable. There was not a vacant seat to be found at the rows of tables outside each café, where strange and wonderful liquids were being consumed in vast quantities, but with a deliberation that implied the possession of unlimited leisure. No one seemed to have anything to do but to walk and talk, salute his acquaintances and criticise the rest of the world, pause for a while to refresh the inner man and then saunter on again, and this was indeed the case. The true citizen of Vindobona always has time for holiday-making, whatever other duties he may neglect, and those who make a study of his weaknesses calculate confidently upon this amiable peculiarity. This saint’s day afternoon, for instance, there were gathered, in a room on the second floor of one of the palatial mansions in the Opera Ring, four men, whose meeting had been facilitated by the absorption of the populace in its pleasures. One by one they had made their way to the appointed spot, the private office of the great financier Israel Goldberg, and here, where a business-like severity strove with a certain barbaric splendour in the appointments, they had refreshed themselves with fruit sherbets and perfumed Eastern tobacco before turning their attention to the matter upon which they had come together. Some signing of papers and a good deal of low-toned conversation followed, until at last the host leaned back in his chair and threw down his pen. “That is well over,” he said, speaking in German. “The movement is on the verge of realisation; we only await the man.”