Chapter XXV: Epilogue: London, 18th June, 2045

Her Imperial Majesty has been graciously pleased to sanction the publication of this work, and to me is entrusted the preparing of a brief epilogue.

I am the Trooper Hylton mentioned in the closing chapter, and first knew the author in those far-away times sixty-five years ago--when we were cadets together at the school of arms. I remember Browne as a shy, awkward, dreamy lad, remarkable for his stature--he stood six foot four--with rapidly maturing, already gigantic strength, and a physical perfection marred by the almost grotesque uncouthness of his face.

A swordsman, second perhaps only to Branscombe, a horseman not rivalled in his time, Browne's career was marred by hopeless failure in scholarship.

The "big boy," as he describes himself, was, on the surface, cold and distant, yet desperately eager to win friendship; but there again his life was marred by that shyness which seemed like icy reserve repelling the kindly approaches of men who cared to know him. Behind that barrier he suffered.

So he came to the Palace bringing with him the very atmosphere of arctic Canada, great, lonely, remote, uncomely, savage. Because of his training as a cowboy, the silence, the solitude of his early life, he lacked the faculty of easy speech, but he had the deepest, grandest qualities of manhood. And at the moment he joined her Majesty's Bodyguard he made his first friendship with no less a man than Sydney, the Magnificent. The two were friends inseparable, and thus in this book we have our first real insight into the events which led to the Terror.

It is supposed that before the great Marquess went to meet his death, he commended Browne to her Majesty's special care. The whole corps of the Guard was indignant at the promotion of this young recruit to the securing of our Lady's safety during the night watches, but the Canadian giant justified even that unusual honour. No less than four times he saved the Queen's life, either from the attacks of assassins, or in actual battle. In the fight on the alabaster stairs, there is no doubt that his incomparable strength, address and valour rescued, not only her Majesty, but her whole escort from massacre, and his lone charge which cleared the upper stairway for our retreat, will go down to history as one of the mightiest deeds in human annals.

His book ends with the creation of the Viceroys of the Guard, and her Majesty's betrothal to Lyonesse; and there is no mention of that winter day when all the presidents and sovereign rulers of the world assembled in St. George's Chapel at Windsor. Browne was then sufficiently recovered from his wounds to attend the solemn service of the Eucharist. He was then a Viceroy of the Guard, and Marquess of Yukon, had been invested with the Garter and in response to a petition of Parliament, granted the Victoria Cross for valour.

But her Imperial Majesty never set any limits to her gratitude towards those who have served her well, and for this Canadian hero she reserved even greater honours. In the celebration of the Eucharist, Brand knelt at her right hand, the Marquess of Yukon on her left, and he was made to stand beside her to receive the surrendered swords of her triumphant Viceroys, all of which, with his own, he laid down before the altar. The emperors, kings, presidents, and reigning sovereigns then one by one broke their swords, and laid the fragments upon the altar, just at the foot of the cross.

At the last came Margaret, attended by Brand, and by Yukon. Kneeling before the table, she made humble presentation of an unbroken sword, then rising, confronted the assembled sovereigns.

"In token," she said, "that I desire unbroken peace, I have dedicated this unbroken sword to the solemn service of the King of kings. In token that the nations need have no fear, I sheathe the sword for ever; and give the sacred trust to this, my servant, Viceroy of the Air."

The giant, kneeling at her feet, received the sheathed sword of the Millennial Peace.

"And I do now deliver into his keeping the Etheric Fleet, charging him never to shed human blood, except at the command of the Great Council of Nations to vindicate the Divine Justice upon any people who shall lift rebellious hands against mankind."

For twenty years this first of the Viceroys of the Air remained in custody of the sheathed sword, a lonely man, and a silent, greatly loved, and greatly suffering.

His wounds, which in one of lesser strength must have proved mortal, bred in his shattered body malignant growths, of which, aged and weary, he died in his forty-fifth year. To Branscombe he passed on the Trust of the Sword; and it was in the bed from which he never afterwards rose that he wrote his book, "The Chariot of the Sun," telling the story of his hopeless and unspoken love for the woman he had so valiantly served.

After his death, in the year 2005, the manuscript was found under seal, addressed to her Majesty, and has not been published until the passions of that time were stilled, and the Terror remains only as a memory seen through the mists of sixty-five fruitful years.

Last winter, our august and venerable sovereign caused the work to be read aloud to her children and grandchildren, and it is on the plea of the young princes that the story is now given to publication. To the people of the golden age it will seem a very quaint, funny old document, which is concerned with such obsolete virtues as unselfish love, faith, honour, and manliness.

HYLTON,
_Viceroy of the Air._

THE END

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