Chapter IV: Part 4

The people about Gogyrvan, though, were perplexing. These men who considered that all you possessed was loaned you to devote to the service of your God, your King and every woman who crossed your path, could hardly be behaving rationally. To talk of serving God sounded as sonorously and as inspiritingly as a drum: yes, and a drum had nothing but air in it. The priests said so-and-so: but did anybody believe the gallant Bishop of Merion, for example, was always to be depended upon?

"I would like the opinion of Prince Evrawc's wife as to that," said Jurgen, with a grin. For it was well-known that all affairs between this Dame Alundyne and the Bishop were so discreetly managed as to afford no reason for any scandal whatever.

As for serving the King, there in plain view was Gogyrvan Gawr, for anyone who so elected, to regard and grow enthusiastic over: Gogyrvan might be shrewd enough, but to Jurgen he suggested very little of the Lord's anointed. To the contrary, he reminded you of Jurgen's brother-in-law, the grocer, without being graced by the tradesman's friendly interest in customers. Gogyrvan Gawr was a person whom Jurgen simply could not imagine any intelligent Deity selecting as steward. And finally, when it came to serving women, what sort of service did women most cordially appreciate? Jurgen had his answer pat enough, but it was an answer not suitable for utterance in a mixed company.

"No one of my honest opinions, in fact, is adapted to further my popularity in Glathion, because I am a monstrous clever fellow who does justice to things as they are. Therefore I must remember always, in justice to myself, that I very probably hold traffic with madmen. Yet Rome was a fine town, and it was geese who saved it. These people may be right; and certainly I cannot go so far as to say they are wrong: but still, at the same time--! Yes, that is how I feel about it."

Thus did Jurgen abide at the chivalrous court of Glathion, and conform to all its customs. In the matter of love-songs nobody protested more movingly that the lady whom he loved (quite hopelessly, of course), embodied all divine perfections: and when it came to knightly service, the possession of Caliburn made the despatching of thieves and giants and dragons seem hardly sportsmanlike. Still, Jurgen fought a little, now and then, in order to conform to the customs of Glathion: and the Duke of Logreus was widely praised as a very promising young knight.

And all the while he fretted because he could just dimly perceive that ideal which was served in Glathion, and the beauty of this ideal, but could not possibly believe in it. Here was, again, a loveliness perceived in twilight, a beauty not clearly visioned.

"Yet am not I a monstrous clever fellow," he would console himself, "to take them all in so completely? It is a joke to which, I think, I do full justice."

So Jurgen abode among these persons to whom life was a high-hearted journeying homeward. God the Father awaited you there, ready to punish at need, but eager to forgive, after the manner of all fathers: that one became a little soiled in traveling, and sometimes blundered into the wrong lane, was a matter which fathers understood: meanwhile here was an ever-present reminder of His perfection incarnated in woman, the finest and the noblest of His creations. Thus was every woman a symbol to be honored magnanimously and reverently. So said they all.

"Why, but to be sure!" assented Jurgen. And in support of his position he very edifyingly quoted Ophelion, and Fabianus Papirius, and Sextius Niger to boot.

15.

Of Compromises in Glathion

The tale records that it was not a great while before, in simple justice to Guenevere, Duke Jurgen had afforded her the advantage of frank conversation in actual privacy. For conventions have to be regarded, of course. Thus the time of a princess is not her own, and at any hour of day all sorts of people are apt to request an audience just when some most improving conversation is progressing famously: but the Hall of Judgment stood vacant and unguarded at night.

"But I would never consider doing such a thing," said Guenevere: "and whatever must you think of me, to make such a proposal!"

"That too, my dearest, is a matter which I can only explain in private."

"And if I were to report your insolence to my father--"

"You would annoy him exceedingly: and from such griefs it is our duty to shield the aged."

"And besides, I am afraid."

"Oh, my dearest," says Jurgen, and his voice quavered, because his love and his sorrow seemed very great to him: "but, oh, my dearest, can it be that you have not faith in me! For with all my body and soul I love you, as I have loved you ever since I first raised your face between my hands, and understood that I had never before known beauty. Indeed, I love you as, I think, no man has ever loved any woman that lived in the long time that is gone, for my love is worship, and no less. The touch of your hand sets me to trembling, dear; and the look of your gray eyes makes me forget there is anything of pain or grief or evil anywhere: for you are the loveliest thing God ever made, with joy in the new skill that had come to His fingers. And you have not faith in me!"

Then the Princess gave a little sobbing laugh of content and repentance, and she clasped the hand of her grief-stricken lover. "Forgive me, Jurgen, for I cannot bear to see you so unhappy!"

"Ah, and what is my grief to you!" he asks of her, bitterly.

"Much, oh, very much, my dear!" she whispered.

So in the upshot Jurgen was never to forget that moment wherein he waited behind the door, and through the crack between the half-open door and the door-frame saw Guenevere approach irresolutely, a wavering white blur in the dark corridor. She came to talk with him where they would not be bothered with interruptions: but she came delightfully perfumed, in her night-shift, and in nothing else. Jurgen wondered at the way of these women even as his arms went about her in the gloom. He remembered always the feel of that warm and slender and yielding body, naked under the thin fabric of the shift, as his arms first went about her: of all their moments together that last breathless minute before either of them had spoken stayed in his memory as the most perfect.

And yet what followed was pleasant enough, for now it was to the wide and softly cushioned throne of a king, no less, that Guenevere and Jurgen resorted, so as to talk where they would not be bothered with interruptions. The throne of Gogyrvan was perfectly dark, under its canopy, in the unlighted hall, and in the dark nobody can see what happens.

Thereafter these two contrived to talk together nightly upon the throne of Glathion: but what remained in Jurgen's memory was that last moment behind the door, and the six tall windows upon the east side of the hall, those windows which were of commingled blue and silver, but were all an opulent glitter, throughout that time in the night when the moon was clear of the tree-tops and had not yet risen high enough to be shut off by the eaves. For that was all which Jurgen really saw in the Hall of Judgment. There would be a brief period wherein upon the floor beneath each window would show a narrow quadrangle of moonlight: but the windows were set in a wall so deep that this soon passed. On the west side were six windows also, but about these was a porch; so no light ever came from the west.

Thus in the dark they would laugh and talk with lowered voices. Jurgen came to these encounters well primed with wine, and in consequence, as he quite comprehended, talked like an angel, without confining himself exclusively to celestial topics. He was often delighted by his own brilliance, and it seemed to him a pity there was no one handy to take it down: so much of his talking was necessarily just a little over the head of any girl, however beautiful and adorable.

And Guenevere, he found, talked infinitely better at night. It was not altogether the wine which made him think that, either: the girl displayed a side she veiled in the day time. A girl, far less a princess, is not supposed to know more than agrees with a man's notion of maidenly ignorance, she contended.

"Nobody ever told me anything about so many interesting matters. Why, I remember--" And Guenevere narrated a quaintly pathetic little story, here irrelevant, of what had befallen her some three or four years earlier. "My mother was living then: but she had never said a word about such things, and frightened as I was, I did not go to her."

Jurgen asked questions.

"Why, yes. There was nothing else to do. I cannot talk freely with my maids and ladies even now. I cannot question them, that is: of course I can listen as they talk among themselves. For me to do more would be unbecoming in a princess. And I wonder quietly about so many things!" She educed instances. "After that I used to notice the animals and the poultry. So I worked out problems for myself, after a fashion. But nobody ever told me anything directly."

"Yet I dare say that Thragnar--well, the Troll King, being very wise, must have made zoology much clearer."

"Thragnar was a skilled enchanter," says a demure voice in the dark; "and through the potency of his abominable arts, I can remember nothing whatever about Thragnar."

Jurgen laughed, ruefully. Still, he was tolerably sure about Thragnar now.

So they talked: and Jurgen marvelled, as millions of men had done aforetime, and have done since, at the girl's eagerness, now that barriers were down, to discuss in considerable detail all such matters as etiquette had previously compelled them to ignore. About her ladies in waiting, for example, she afforded him some very curious data: and concerning men in general she asked innumerable questions that Jurgen found delicious.

Such innocence combined--upon the whole--with a certain moral obtuseness, seemed inconceivable. For to Jurgen it now appeared that Guenevere was behaving with not quite the decorum which might fairly be expected of a princess. Contrition, at least, one might have looked for, over this hole and corner business: whereas it worried him to note that Guenevere was coming to accept affairs almost as a matter of course. Certainly she did not seem to think at all of any wickedness anywhere: the utmost she suggested was the necessity of being very careful. And while she never contradicted him in these private conversations, and submitted in everything to his judgment, her motive now appeared to be hardly more than a wish to please him. It was almost as though she were humoring him in his foolishness. And all this within six weeks! reflected Jurgen: and he nibbled his finger-nails, with a mental side-glance toward the opinions of King Gogyrvan Gawr.

But in daylight the Princess remained unchanged. In daylight Jurgen adored her, but with no feeling of intimacy. Very rarely did occasion serve for them to be actually alone in the day time. Once or twice, though, he kissed her in open sunlight: and then her eyes were melting but wary, and the whole affair was rather flat. She did not repulse him: but she stayed a princess, appreciative of her station, and seemed not at all the invisible person who talked with him at night in the Hall of Judgment.

Presently, by common consent, they began to avoid each other by daylight. Indeed, the time of the Princess was now pre-occupied: for now had come into Glathion a ship with saffron colored sails, and having for its figure-head a dragon that was painted with thirty colors. Such was the ship which brought Messire Merlin Ambrosius and Dame Anaïtis, the Lady of the Lake, with a great retinue, to fetch young Guenevere to London, where she was to be married to King Arthur.

First there was a week of feasting and tourneys and high mirth of every kind. Now the trumpets blared, and upon a scaffolding that was gay with pennons and smart tapestries King Gogyrvan sat nodding and blinking in his brightest raiment, to judge who did the best: and into the field came joyously a press of dukes and earls and barons and many famous knights, to contend for honor and a trumpery chaplet of pearls.

Jurgen shrugged, and honored custom. The Duke of Logreus acquitted himself with credit in the opening tournament, unhorsing Sir Dodinas le Sauvage, Earl Roth of Meliot, Sir Epinogris, and Sir Hector de Maris: then Earl Damas of Listenise smote like a whirlwind, and Jurgen slid contentedly down the tail of his fine horse. His part in the tournament was ended, and he was heartily glad of it. He preferred to contemplate rather than share in such festivities: and he now followed his bent with a most exquisite misery, because he considered that never had any other poet occupied a situation more picturesque.

By day he was the Duke of Logreus, which in itself was a notable advance upon pawnbroking: after nightfall he discounted the peculiar privileges of a king. It was the secrecy, the deluding of everybody, which he especially enjoyed: and in the thought of what a monstrous clever fellow was Jurgen, he almost lost sight of the fact that he was miserable over the impending marriage of the lady he loved.

Once or twice he caught the tail-end of a glance from Gogyrvan's bright old eye. Jurgen by this time abhorred Gogyrvan, as a person of abominably unjust dealings.

"To take no better care of his own daughter," Jurgen considered, "is infamous. The man is neglecting his duties as a father, and to do that is not fair."

16.

Divers Imbroglios of King Smoit

Now it befell that for three nights in succession the Princess Guenevere was unable to converse with Jurgen in the Hall of Judgment. So upon one of these disengaged evenings Duke Jurgen held a carouse with Aribert and Urien, two of Gogyrvan's barons, who had just returned from Pengwaed-Gir, and had queer tales to narrate of the Trooping Fairies who garrison that place.

All three were seasoned topers, so Jurgen went to bed prepared for anything. Later he sat up in bed, and found it was much as he had suspected. The room was haunted, and at the foot of his couch were two ghosts: one an impudent-looking leering phantom, in a suit of old-fashioned armor, and the other a beautiful pale lady, in the customary flowing white draperies.

"Good-morning to you both," says Jurgen, "and sorry am I that I cannot truthfully observe I am glad to see you. Though you are welcome enough if you can manage to haunt the room quietly." Then, seeing that both phantoms looked puzzled, Jurgen proceeded to explain. "Last year, when I was traveling upon business in Westphalia, it was my grief to spend a night in the haunted castle of Neuedesberg, for I could not get any sleep at all in that place. There was a ghost in charge who persisted in rattling very large iron chains and in groaning dismally throughout the night. Then toward morning he took the form of a monstrous cat, and climbed upon the foot of my bed: and there he squatted yowling until daybreak. And as I am ignorant of German, I was not able to convey to him any idea of my disapproval of his conduct. Now I trust that as compatriots, or as I might say with more exactness, as former compatriots, you will appreciate that such behavior is out of all reason."

"Messire," says the male ghost, and he oozed to his full height, "you are guilty of impertinence in harboring such a suspicion. I can only hope it proceeds from ignorance."

"For I am sure," put in the lady, "that I always disliked cats, and we never had them about the castle."

"And you must pardon my frankness, messire," continued the male ghost, "but you cannot have moved widely in noble company if you are indeed unable to distinguish between members of the feline species and of the reigning family of Glathion."

"Well, I have seen dowager queens who justified some such confusion," observed Jurgen. "Still, I entreat the forgiveness of both of you, for I had no idea that I was addressing royalty."

"I was King Smoit," explained the male phantom, "and this was my ninth wife, Queen Sylvia Tereu."

Jurgen bowed as gracefully, he flattered himself, as was possible in his circumstances. It is not easy to bow gracefully while sitting erect in bed.

"Often and over again have I heard of you, King Smoit," says Jurgen. "You were the grandfather of Gogyrvan Gawr, and you murdered your ninth wife, and your eighth wife, and your fifth wife, and your third wife too: and you went under the title of the Black King, for you were reputed the wickedest monarch that ever reigned in Glathion and the Red Islands."

It seemed to Jurgen that King Smoit evinced embarrassment, but it is hard to be quite certain when a ghost is blushing. "Perhaps I was spoken of in some such terms," says Smoit, "for the neighbors were censorious gossips, and I was not lucky in my marriages. And I regret, I bitterly regret, to confess that, in a moment of extreme yet not quite unprovoked excitement, I assassinated the lady whom you now behold."

"And I am sure, through no fault of mine," says Sylvia Tereu.

"Certainly, my dear, you resisted with all your might. I only wish that you had been a larger and a brawnier woman. But you, messire, can now perceive, I suppose, the folly of expecting a high King of Glathion, and the queen that he took delight in, to sit upon your bed and howl?"

So then, upon reflection, Jurgen admitted he had never had that experience; nor, he handsomely added, could he recall any similar incident among his friends.

"The notion is certainly preposterous," went on King Smoit, and very grimly he smiled. "We are drawn hither by quite other intentions. In fact, we wish to ask of you, as a member of the family, your assistance in a delicate affair."

"I would be delighted," Jurgen stated, "to aid you in any possible way. But why do you call me a member of the family?"

"Now, to deal frankly," says Smoit, with a grin, "I am not claiming any alliance with the Duke of Logreus--"

"Sometimes," says Jurgen, "one prefers to travel incognito. As a king, you ought to understand that."

--"My interest is rather in the grandson of Steinvor. Now you will remember your grandmother Steinvor as, I do not doubt, a charming old lady. But I remember Steinvor, the wife of Ludwig, as one of the loveliest girls that a king's eyes ever lighted on."

"Oh, sir," says Jurgen, horrified, "and what is this you are telling me!"

"Merely that I had always an affectionate nature," replied King Smoit, "and that I was a fine upstanding young king in those days. And one of the results of my being these things was your father, whom men called Coth the son of Ludwig. But I can assure you Ludwig had done nothing to deserve it."

"Well, well!" said Jurgen: "all this is very scandalous: and very upsetting, too, it is to have a brand-new grandfather foisted upon you at this hour of the morning. Still, it happened a great while ago: and if Ludwig did not fret over it, I see no reason why I should do so. And besides, King Smoit, it may be that you are not telling me the truth."

"If you doubt my confession, messire my grandson, you have only to look into the next mirror. It is precisely on this account that we have ventured to dispel your slumbers. For to me you bear a striking resemblance. You have the family face."

Now Jurgen considered the lineaments of King Smoit of Glathion. "Really," said Jurgen, "of course it is very flattering to be told that your appearance is regal. I do not at all know what to say in reply to the implied compliment, without seeming uncivil. I would never for a moment question that you were much admired in your day, sir, and no doubt very justly so. None the less--well, my nose, now, from such glimpses of it as mirrors have hitherto afforded, does not appear to be a snub-nose."

"Ah, but appearances are proverbially deceitful," observed King Smoit.

"And about the left hand corner," protested Queen Sylvia Tereu, "I detect a distinct resemblance."

"Now I may seem unduly obtuse," said Jurgen, "for I am a little obtuse. It is a habit with me, a very bad habit formed in early infancy, and I have never been able to break myself of it. And so I have not any notion at what you two are aiming."

Replied the ghost of King Smoit: "I will explain. Just sixty-three years ago to-night I murdered my ninth wife in circumstances of peculiar brutality, as you with rather questionable taste have mentioned."

Then Jurgen was somewhat abashed, and felt that it did not become him, who had so recently cut off the head of his own wife, to assume the airs of a precisian. "Of course," says Jurgen, more broad-mindedly, "these little family differences are always apt to occur in married life."

"So be it! Though, by the so-and-sos of Ursula's eleven thousand traveling companions, there was a time wherein I would not have brooked such criticism. Ah, well, that time is overpast, and I am a bloodless thing that the wind sweeps at the wind's will through lands in which but yesterday King Smoit was dreaded. So I let that which has been be."

"Well, that seems reasonable," said Jurgen, "and to be a trifle rhetorical is the privilege of grandfathers. Therefore I entreat you, sir, to continue."

"Two years afterward I followed the Emperor Locrine in his expedition against the Suevetii, an evil and luxurious people who worship Gozarin peculiarly, by means of little boats. I must tell you, grandson, that was a goodly raid, conducted by a band of tidy fighters in a land of wealth and of fine women. But alack, as the saying is, in our return from Osnach my loved general Locrine was captured by that arch-fiend Duke Corineus of Cornwall: and I, among many others who had followed the Emperor, paid for our merry larcenies and throat-cuttings a very bitter price. Corineus was not at all broadminded, not what you would call a man of the world. So it was in a noisome dungeon that I was incarcerated,--I, Smoit of Glathion, who conquered Enisgarth and Sargyll in open battle and fearlessly married the heiress of Camwy! But I spare you the unpleasant details. It suffices to say that I was dissatisfied with my quarters. Yet fain to leave them as I became, there was but one way. It involved the slaying of my gaoler, a step which was, I confess, to me distasteful. I was getting on in life, and had grown tired of killing people. Yet, to mature deliberation, the life of a graceless varlet, void of all gentleness and with no bowels of compassion, and deaf to suggestions of bribery, appeared of no overwhelming importance."

"I can readily imagine, grandfather, that you were not deeply interested in either the nature or the anatomy of your gaoler. So you did what was unavoidable."

"Yes, I treacherously slew him, and escaped in an impenetrable disguise to Glathion, where not long afterward I died. My dying just then was most annoying, for I was on the point of being married, and she was a remarkably attractive girl,--King Tyrnog's daughter, from Craintnor way. She would have been my thirteenth wife. And not a week before the ceremony I tripped and fell down my own castle steps, and broke my neck. It was a humiliating end for one who had been a warrior of considerable repute. Upon my word, it made me think there might be something, after all, in those old superstitions about thirteen being an unlucky number. But what was I saying?--oh, yes! It is also unlucky to be careless about one's murders. You will readily understand that for one or two such affairs I am condemned yearly to haunt the scene of my crime on its anniversary: such an arrangement is fair enough, and I make no complaint, though of course it does rather break into the evening. But it happened that I treacherously slew my gaoler with a large cobble-stone on the fifteenth of June. Now the unfortunate part, the really awkward feature, was that this was to an hour the anniversary of the death of my ninth wife."

"And you murdering insignificant strangers on such a day!" said Queen Sylvia. "You climbing out of jail windows figged out as a lady abbess, on an anniversary you ought to have kept on your knees in unavailing repentance! But you were a hard man, Smoit, and it was little loving courtesy you showed your wife at a time when she might reasonably look to be remembered, and that is a fact."

"My dear, I admit it was heedless of me. I could not possibly say more. At any rate, grandson, I discovered after my decease that such heedlessness entailed my haunting on every fifteenth of June at three in the morning two separate places."

"Well, but that was justice," says Jurgen.

"It may have been justice," Smoit admitted: "but my point is that it happened to be impossible. However, I was aided by my great-great-grandfather Penpingon Vreichvras ap Mylwald Glasanief. He too had the family face; and in every way resembled me so closely that he impersonated me to everyone's entire satisfaction; and with my wife's assistance re-enacted my disastrous crime upon the scene of its occurrence, June after June."

"Indeed," said Queen Sylvia, "he handled his sword infinitely better than you, my dear. It was a thrilling pleasure to be murdered by Penpingon Vreichvras ap Mylwald Glasanief, and I shall always regret him."

"For you must understand, grandson, that the term of King Penpingon Vreichvras ap Mylwald Glasanief's stay in Purgatory has now run out, and he has recently gone to Heaven. That was pleasant for him, I dare say, so I do not complain. Still, it leaves me with no one to take my place. Angels, as you will readily understand, are not permitted to perpetrate murders, even in the way of kindness. It might be thought to establish a dangerous precedent."

"All this," said Jurgen, "seems regrettable, but not strikingly explicit. I have a heart and a half to serve you, sir, with not seven-eighths of a notion as to what you want of me. Come, put a name to it!"

"You have, as I have said, the family face. You are, in fact, the living counterpart of Smoit of Glathion. So I beseech you, messire my grandson, for this one night to impersonate my ghost, and with the assistance of Queen Sylvia Tereu to see that at three o'clock the White Turret is haunted to everyone's satisfaction. Otherwise," said Smoit, gloomily, "the consequences will be deplorable."

"But I have had no experience at haunting," Jurgen confessed. "It is a pursuit in which I do not pretend to competence: and I do not even know just how one goes about it."

"That matter is simple, although mysterious preliminaries will be, of course, necessitated, in order to convert a living person into a ghost--"

"The usual preliminaries, sir, are out of the question: and I must positively decline to be stabbed or poisoned or anything of that kind, even to humor my grandfather."

Both Smoit and Sylvia protested that any such radical step would be superfluous, since Jurgen's ghostship was to be transient. In fact, all Jurgen would have to do would be to drain the embossed goblet which Sylvia Tereu held out to him, with Druidical invocations.

And for a moment Jurgen hesitated. The whole business seemed rather improbable. Still, the ties of kin are strong, and it is not often one gets the chance to aid, however slightly, one's long-dead grandfather: besides, the potion smelt very invitingly.

"Well," says Jurgen, "I am willing to taste any drink once." Then Jurgen drank.

The flavor was excellent. Yet the drink seemed not to affect Jurgen, at first. Then he began to feel a trifle light-headed. Next he looked downward, and was surprised to notice there was nobody in his bed. Closer investigation revealed the shadowy outline of a human figure, through which the bedclothing had collapsed. This, he decided, was all that was left of Jurgen. And it gave him a queer sensation. Jurgen jumped like a startled horse, and so violently that he flew out of bed, and found himself floating imponderably about the room.

Now Jurgen recognized the feeling perfectly. He had often had it in his sleep, in dreams wherein he would bend his legs at the knees so that his feet came up behind him, and he would pass through the air without any effort. Then it seemed ridiculously simple, and he would wonder why he never thought of it before. And then he would reflect: "This is an excellent way of getting around. I will come to breakfast this way in the morning, and show Lisa how simple it is. How it will astonish her, to be sure, and how clever she will think me!" And then Jurgen would wake up, and find that somehow he had forgotten the trick of it.

But just now this manner of locomotion was undeniably easy. So Jurgen floated around his bed once or twice, then to the ceiling, for practice. Through inexperience, he miscalculated the necessary force, and popped through into the room above, where he found himself hovering immediately over the Bishop of Merion. His eminence was not alone, but as both occupants of the apartment were asleep, Jurgen witnessed nothing unepiscopal. Now Jurgen rejoined his grandfather, and girded on charmed Caliburn, and demanded what must next be done.

"The assassination will take place in the White Turret, as usual. Queen Sylvia will instruct you in the details. You can invent most of the affair, however, as the Lady of the Lake, who occupies this room to-night, is very probably unacquainted with our terrible history."

Then King Smoit observed that it was high time he kept his appointment in Cornwall, and he melted into air, with an easy confidence that bespoke long practise: and Jurgen followed Queen Sylvia Tereu.

17.

About a Cock That Crowed Too Soon

Next the tale tells of how Jurgen and the ghost of Queen Sylvia Tereu came into the White Turret. The Lady of the Lake was in bed: she slept unaccompanied, as Jurgen noted with approval, for he wished to intrude upon no more tête-à-têtes. And Dame Anaïtis did not at first awake.

Now this was a gloomy and high-paneled apartment, with exactly the traditional amount of moonlight streaming through two windows. Any ghost, even an apprentice, could have acquitted himself with credit in such surroundings, and Jurgen thought he did extremely well. He was atavistically brutal, and to improvise the accompanying dialogue he did not find difficult. So everything went smoothly, and with such spirit that Anaïtis was presently wakened by Queen Sylvia's very moving wails for mercy, and sat erect in bed, as though a little startled. Then the Lady of the Lake leaned back among the pillows, and witnessed the remainder of the terrible scene with remarkable self-possession.

So it was that the tragedy swelled to its appalling climax, and subsided handsomely. With the aid of Caliburn, Jurgen had murdered his temporary wife. He had dragged her insensate body across the floor, by the hair of her head, and had carefully remembered first to put her comb in his pocket, as Queen Sylvia had requested, so that it would not be lost. He had given vent to several fiendish "Ha-ha's" and all the old high imprecations he remembered: and in short, everything had gone splendidly when he left the White Turret with a sense of self-approval and Queen Sylvia Tereu.

The two of them paused in the winding stairway; and in the darkness, after he had restored her comb, the Queen was telling Jurgen how sorry she was to part with him.

"For it is back to the cold grave I must be going now, Messire Jurgen, and to the tall flames of Purgatory: and it may be that I shall not ever see you any more."

"I shall regret the circumstance, madame," says Jurgen, "for you are the loveliest person I have ever seen."

The Queen was pleased. "That is a delightfully boyish speech, and one can see it comes from the heart. I only wish that I could meet with such unsophisticated persons in my present abode. Instead, I am herded with battered sinners who have no heart, who are not frank and outspoken about anything, and I detest their affectations."

"Ah, then you are not happy with your husband, Sylvia? I suspected as much."

"I see very little of Smoit. It is true he has eight other wives all resident in the same flame, and cannot well show any partiality. Two of his Queens, though, went straight to Heaven: and his eighth wife, Gudrun, we are compelled to fear, must have been an unrepentant sinner, for she has never reached Purgatory. But I always distrusted Gudrun, myself: otherwise I would never have suggested to Smoit that he have her strangled in order to make me his queen. You see, I thought it a fine thing to be a queen, in those days, Jurgen, when I was an artless slip of a girl. And Smoit was all honey and perfume and velvet, in those days, Jurgen, and little did I suspect the cruel fate that was to befall me."

"Indeed, it is a sad thing, Sylvia, to be murdered by the hand which, so to speak, is sworn to keep an eye on your welfare, and which rightfully should serve you on its knees."

"It was not that I minded. Smoit killed me in a fit of jealousy, and jealousy is in its blundering way a compliment. No, a worse thing than that befell me, Jurgen, and embittered all my life in the flesh." And Sylvia began to weep.

"And what was that thing, Sylvia?"

Queen Sylvia whispered the terrible truth. "My husband did not understand me."

"Now, by Heaven," says Jurgen, "when a woman tells me that, even though the woman be dead, I know what it is she expects of me."

So Jurgen put his arm about the ghost of Queen Sylvia Tereu, and comforted her. Then, finding her quite willing to be comforted, Jurgen sat for a while upon the dark steps, with one arm still about Queen Sylvia. The effect of the potion had evidently worn off, because Jurgen found himself to be composed no longer of cool imponderable vapor, but of the warmest and hardest sort of flesh everywhere. But probably the effect of the wine which Jurgen had drunk earlier in the evening had not worn off: for now Jurgen began to talk wildishly in the dark, about the necessity of his, in some way, avenging the injury inflicted upon his nominal grandfather, Ludwig, and Jurgen drew his sword, charmed Caliburn.

"For, as you perceive," said Jurgen, "I carry such weapons as are sufficient for all ordinary encounters. And am I not to use them, to requite King Smoit for the injustice he did poor Ludwig? Why, certainly I must. It is my duty."

"Ah, but Smoit by this is back in Purgatory," Queen Sylvia protested, "And to draw your sword against a woman is cowardly."

"The avenging sword of Jurgen, my charming Sylvia, is the terror of envious men, but it is the comfort of all pretty women."

"It is undoubtedly a very large sword," said she: "oh, a magnificent sword, as I can perceive even in the dark. But Smoit, I repeat, is not here to measure weapons with you."

"Now your arguments irritate me, whereas an honest woman would see to it that all the legacies of her dead husband were duly satisfied--"

"Oh, oh! and what do you mean--?"

"Well, but certainly a grandson is--at one remove, I grant you,--a sort of legacy."

"There is something in what you advance--"

"There is a great deal in what I advance, I can assure you. It is the most natural and most penetrating kind of logic; and I wish merely to discharge a duty--"

"But you upset me, with that big sword of yours, you make me nervous, and I cannot argue so long as you are flourishing it about. Come now, put up your sword! Oh, what is anybody to do with you! Here is the sheath for your sword," says she.

At this point they were interrupted.

"Duke of Logreus," says the voice of Dame Anaïtis, "do you not think it would be better to retire, before such antics at the door of my bedroom give rise to a scandal?"

For Anaïtis had half-opened the door of her bedroom, and with a lamp in her hand, was peering out into the narrow stairway. Jurgen was a little embarrassed, for his apparent intimacy with a lady who had been dead for sixty-three years would be, he felt, a matter difficult to explain. So Jurgen rose to his feet, and hastily put up the weapon he had exhibited to Queen Sylvia, and decided to pass airily over the whole affair. And outside, a cock crowed, for it was now dawn.

"I bid you a good morning, Dame Anaïtis," said Jurgen. "But the stairways hereabouts are confusing, and I must have lost my way. I was going for a stroll. This is my distant relative Queen Sylvia Tereu, who kindly offered to accompany me. We were going out to gather mushrooms and to watch the sunrise, you conceive."

"Messire de Logreus, I think you had far better go back to bed."

"To the contrary, madame, it is my manifest duty to serve as Queen Sylvia's escort--"

"For all that, messire, I do not see any Queen Sylvia."

Jurgen looked about him. And certainly his grandfather's ninth wife was no longer visible. "Yes, she has vanished. But that was to be expected at cockcrow. Still, that cock crew just at the wrong moment," said Jurgen, ruefully. "It was not fair."

And Dame Anaïtis said: "Gogyrvan's cellar is well stocked: and you sat late with Urien and Aribert: and doubtless they also were lucky enough to discover a queen or two in Gogyrvan's cellar. No less, I think you are still a little drunk."

"Now answer me this, Dame Anaïtis: were you not visited by two ghosts to-night?"

"Why, that is as it may be," she replied: "but the White Turret is notoriously haunted, and it is few quiet nights I have passed there, for Gogyrvan's people were a bad lot."

"Upon my word," wonders Jurgen, "what manner of person is this Dame Anaïtis, who remains unstirred by such a brutal murder as I have committed, and makes no more of ghosts than I would of moths? I have heard she is an enchantress, I am sure she is a fine figure of a woman: and in short, here is a matter which would repay looking into, were not young Guenevere the mistress of my heart."

Aloud he said: "Perhaps then I am drunk, madame. None the less, I still think the cock crew just at the wrong moment."

"Some day you must explain the meaning of that," says she. "Meanwhile I am going back to bed, and I again advise you to do the same."

Then the door closed, the bolt fell, and Jurgen went away, still in considerable excitement.

"This Dame Anaïtis is an interesting personality," he reflected, "and it would be a pleasure, now, to demonstrate to her my grievance against the cock, did occasion serve. Well, things less likely than that have happened. Then, too, she came upon me when my sword was out, and in consequence knows I wield a respectable weapon. She may feel the need of a good swordsman some day, this handsome Lady of the Lake who has no husband. So let us cultivate patience. Meanwhile, it appears that I am of royal blood. Well, I fancy there is something in the scandal, for I detect in me a deal in common with this King Smoit. Twelve wives, though! no, that is too many. I would limit no man's liaisons, but twelve wives in lawful matrimony bespeaks an optimism unknown to me. No, I do not think I am drunk: but it is unquestionable that I am not walking very straight. Certainly, too, we did drink a great deal. So I had best go quietly back to bed, and say nothing more about to-night's doings."

As much he did. And this was the first time that Jurgen, who had been a pawnbroker, held any discourse with Dame Anaïtis, whom men called the Lady of the Lake.

18.

Why Merlin Talked in Twilight

It was two days later that Jurgen was sent for by Merlin Ambrosius. The Duke of Logreus came to the magician in twilight, for the windows of this room were covered with sheets which shut out the full radiance of day. Everything in the room was thus visible in a diffused and tempered light that cast no shadows. In his hand Merlin held a small mirror, about three inches square, from which he raised his dark eyes puzzlingly.

"I have been talking to my fellow ambassador, Dame Anaïtis: and I have been wondering, Messire de Logreus, if you have ever reared white pigeons."

Jurgen looked at the little mirror. "There was a woman of the Léshy who not long ago showed me an employment to which one might put the blood of white pigeons. She too used such a mirror. I saw what followed, but I must tell you candidly that I understood nothing of the ins and outs of the affair."

Merlin nodded. "I suspected something of the sort. So I elected to talk with you in a room wherein, as you perceive, there are no shadows."

"Now, upon my word," says Jurgen, "but here at last is somebody who can see my attendant! Why is it, pray, that no one else can do so?"

"It was my own shadow which drew my notice to your follower. For I, too, have had a shadow given me. It was the gift of my father, of whom you have probably heard."

It was Jurgen's turn to nod. Everybody knew who had begotten Merlin Ambrosius, and sensible persons preferred not to talk of the matter. Then Merlin went on to speak of the traffic between Merlin and Merlin's shadow.

"Thus and thus," says Merlin, "I humor my shadow. And thus and thus my shadow serves me. There is give-and-take, such as is requisite everywhere."

"I understand," says Jurgen: "but has no other person ever perceived this shadow of yours?"

"Once only, when for a while my shadow deserted me," Merlin replied. "It was on a Sunday my shadow left me, so that I walked unattended in naked sunlight: for my shadow was embracing the church-steeple, where church-goers knelt beneath him. The church-goers were obscurely troubled without suspecting why, for they looked only at each other. The priest and I alone saw him quite clearly,--the priest because this thing was evil, and I because this thing was mine."

"Well, now I wonder what did the priest say to your bold shadow?"

"'But you must go away!'--and the priest spoke without any fear. Why is it they seem always without fear, those dull and calm-eyed priests? 'Such conduct is unseemly. For this is High God's house, and far-off peoples are admonished by its steadfast spire, pointing always heavenward, that the place is holy,' said the priest. And my shadow answered, 'But I only know that steeples are of phallic origin.' And my shadow wept, wept ludicrously, clinging to the steeple where church-goers knelt beneath him."

"Now, and indeed that must have been disconcerting, Messire Merlin. Still, as you got your shadow back again, there was no great harm done. But why is it that such attendants follow some men while other men are permitted to live in decent solitude? It does not seem quite fair."

"Perhaps I could explain it to you, friend, but certainly I shall not. You know too much as it is. For you appear in that bright garment of yours to have come from a land and a time which even I, who am a skilled magician, can only cloudily foresee, and cannot understand at all. What puzzles me, however"--and Merlin's fore-finger shot out. "How many feet had the first wearer of your shirt? and were you ever an old man?" says he.

"Well, four, and I was getting on," says Jurgen.

"And I did not guess! But certainly that is it,--an old poet loaned at once a young man's body and the Centaur's shirt. Adères has loosed a new jest into the world, for her own reasons--"

"But you have things backwards. It was Sereda whom I cajoled so nicely."

"Names that are given by men amount to very little in a case like this. The shadow which follows you I recognize--and revere--as the gift of Adères, a dreadful Mother of small Gods. No doubt she has a host of other names. And you cajoled her, you consider! I would not willingly walk in the shirt of any person who considers that. But she will enlighten you, my friend, at her appointed time."

"Well, so that she deals justly--" Jurgen said, and shrugged.

Now Merlin put aside the mirror. "Meanwhile it was another matter entirely that Dame Anaïtis and I discussed, and about which I wished to be speaking with you. Gogyrvan is sending to King Arthur, along with Gogyrvan's daughter, that Round Table which Uther Pendragon gave Gogyrvan, and a hundred knights to fill the sieges of this table. Gogyrvan, who, with due respect, possesses a deplorable sense of humor, has numbered you among these knights. Now it is rumored the Princess is given to conversing a great deal with you in private, and Arthur has never approved of garrulity. So I warn you that for you to come with us to London would not be convenient."

"I hardly think so, either," said Jurgen, with appropriate melancholy; "for me to pursue the affair any further would only result in marring what otherwise will always be a perfect memory of divers very pleasant conversations."

"Old poet, you are well advised," said Merlin,--"especially now that the little princess whom we know is about to enter queenhood and become a symbol. I am sorry for her, for she will be worshipped as a revelation of Heaven's splendor, and being flesh and blood, she will not like it. And it is to no effect I have forewarned King Arthur, for that must happen which will always happen so long as wisdom is impotent against human stupidity. So wisdom can but make the best of it, and be content to face the facts of a great mystery."

Thereupon, Merlin arose, and lifted the tapestry behind him, so that Jurgen could see what hitherto this tapestry had screened.

* * * * *

"You have embarrassed me horribly," said Jurgen, "and I can feel that I am still blushing, about the ankles. Well, I was wrong: so let us say no more concerning it."

"I wished to show you," Merlin returned, "that I know what I am talking about. However, my present purpose is to put Guenevere out of your head: for in your heart I think she never was, old poet, who go so modestly in the Centaur's shirt. Come, tell me now! and does the thought of her approaching marriage really disturb you?"

"I am the unhappiest man that breathes," said Jurgen, with unction. "All night I lie awake in my tumbled bed, and think of the miserable day which is past, and of what is to happen in that equally miserable day whose dawn I watch with a sick heart. And I cry aloud, in the immortal words of Apollonius Myronides--"

"Of whom?" says Merlin.

"I allude to the author of the _Myrosis_," Jurgen explained,--"whom so many persons rashly identify with Apollonius Herophileius."

"Oh, yes, of course! your quotation is very apt. Why, then your condition is sad but not incurable. For I am about to give you this token, with which, if you are bold enough, you will do thus and thus."

"But indeed this is a somewhat strange token, and the arms and legs, and even the head, of this little man are remarkably alike! Well, and you tell me thus and thus. But how does it happen, Messire Merlin, that you have never used this token in the fashion you suggest to me?"

"Because I was afraid. You forget I am only a magician, whose conjuring raises nothing more formidable than devils. But this is a bit of the Old Magic that is no longer understood, and I prefer not to meddle with it. You, to the contrary, are a poet, and the Old Magic was always favorable to poets."

"Well, I will think about it," says Jurgen, "if this will really put Dame Guenevere out of my head."

"Be assured it will do that," said Merlin. "For with reason does the _Dirghâgama_ declare, 'The brightness of the glowworm cannot be compared to that of a lamp.'"

"A very pleasant little work, the _Dirghâgama_," said Jurgen, tolerantly--"though superficial, of course."

Then Merlin Ambrosius gave Jurgen the token, and some advice.

So that night Jurgen told Guenevere he would not go in her train to London. He told her candidly that Merlin was suspicious of their intercourse.

"And therefore, in order to protect you and to protect your fame, my dearest dear," said Jurgen, "it is necessary that I sacrifice myself and everything I prize in life. I shall suffer very much: but my consolation will be that I have dealt fairly with you whom I love with an entire heart, and shall have preserved you through my misery."

But Guenevere did not appear to notice how noble this was of Jurgen. Instead, she wept very softly, in a heartbroken way that Jurgen found unbearable.

"For no man, whether emperor or peasant," says the Princess, "has ever been loved more dearly or faithfully or more wholly without any reserve or forethought than you, my dearest, have been loved by me. All that I had I have given you. All that I had you have taken, consuming it. So now you leave me with not anything more to give you, not even any anger or contempt, now that you turn me adrift, for there is nothing in me anywhere save love of you, who are unworthy."

"But I die many deaths," said Jurgen, "when you speak thus to me." And in point of fact, he did feel rather uncomfortable.

"I speak the truth, though. You have had all: and so you are a little weary, and perhaps a little afraid of what may happen if you do not break off with me."

"Now you misjudge me, darling--"

"No, I do not misjudge you, Jurgen. Instead, for the first time I judge both of us. You I forgive, because I love you, but myself I do not forgive, and I cannot ever forgive, for having been a spendthrift fool."

And Jurgen found such talking uncomfortable and tedious and very unfair to him. "For there is nothing I can do to help matters," says Jurgen. "Why, what could anybody possibly expect me to do about it? And so why not be happy while we may? It is not as though we had any time to waste."

For this was the last night but one before the day that was set for Guenevere's departure.

19.

The Brown Man with Queer Feet

Early in the following morning Jurgen left Cameliard, traveling toward Carohaise, and went into the Druid forest there, and followed Merlin's instructions.

"Not that I for a moment believe in such nonsense," said Jurgen: "but it will be amusing to see what comes of this business, and it is unjust to deny even nonsense a fair trial."

So he presently observed a sun-browned brawny fellow, who sat upon the bank of a stream, dabbling his feet in the water, and making music with a pipe constructed of seven reeds of irregular lengths. To him Jurgen displayed, in such a manner as Merlin had prescribed, the token which Merlin had given. The man made a peculiar sign, and rose. Jurgen saw that this man's feet were unusual.