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Updated: June 23, 2025
When he had waited in the rotunda for Cara, he had known Karyl to be living. He knew it now, yet it seemed as though his life-rival had died and come again to life. It seemed, too, as though his own prison doors had swung open, and while he stood on the free threshold had slammed inward upon him, sweeping him back, broken and bruised with their clanging momentum. To-morrow he must go away.
While Cara and Karyl had been on the second floor, a heavy Osmanli, wearing the Sultan's uniform, had stood in the center of the room above, looking about with keen, pig-like eyes, as he gave rapid commands to a half dozen Arabs of villainous visage. "You, Sayed Ayoub," he ordered, "take your pig of a self and others like unto you into that doorway by the stairs.
"These men have gradually and quietly reorganized the army, the bureaucracy, the very palace Guard. We have undermined the government's power, until when the word is passed to strike the blow, a honey-combed system will crumble under its own weight. When Karyl calls on his troops, not one man will respond. Well " Jusseret smiled dryly "perhaps I overstate the case. Possibly one man will.
Benton raised a hand. "If we are to talk at all along these lines, Pagratide, there is only one way in which it can be done." "And that is what?" "That each of us, throughout, talks with only one thought in mind: her happiness; that one strip aside all conventions and talk as two utterly naked souls might talk." "Of course," said Karyl simply. "Otherwise I should not have suggested it."
Again he heard and ignored the knock, then the door opened slowly, and turning his head, he recognized Karyl on his threshold. Just at that moment the American could not have spoken. He had come to a point of pent-up emotion which can move only by breaking dams. He pointed to a chair, but Karyl shook his head. For a while neither spoke.
To drive through the streets of Puntal with that half-stunned misery written clear in lips and eyes, she must, he knew, have reached the outmost border of endurance. Karyl bent solicitously forward and spoke, and she nodded as if answering in a dream, smiling wanly. It was all as some young Queen might have gone to the guillotine rather than to her coronation.
Finally a light sound behind him called his attention inward. The King and Von Ritz stood together in the doorway. Both were in dress uniform. Karyl, even at the side of the soldierly Von Ritz, was striking in the white and silver of Galavia's commanding general. Across his breast glinted the decorations of all the orders to which Royalty entitled him.
It can be given out that she has gone to Maritzburg, and I shall tell her" Karyl smiled with a cynical humor "that I am over-weary with this task of Kingship, and that I shall join her within a few days for a brief truancy from the cares of state." "It may be the safest thing," reflected the officer. "It at least frees our minds of a burdensome anxiety." "I shall persuade her," declared Karyl.
"There are two miserable little kingdoms over there.... Horrible little two-by-four principalities, that fit into the map of Europe like little, ragged chips in a mosaic.... Cousin Van lied in there to protect my disguise.... It is my father who is the Grand Duke of Maritzburg, and it is ordained that I shall marry Prince Karyl of Galavia.... It was Von Ritz's mission to remind me of my slavery."
Leaning over the parapet, he could see one of his fantastically uniformed soldiery pacing back and forth before a sentry-box, his musket jauntily shouldered, and a bayonet glinting at his belt. Karyl stood looking, and his lips curled skeptically as he wondered whether the man would repel or admit assassins. Somewhat wearily the King turned and leaned on the stone coping of the outer wall.
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