Prince Zaleski

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  PRINCE ZALESKI

  M[atthew] P[hipps] Shiel

  _Come now, and let us reason together._ ISAIAH

  _Of the strange things that befell the valiant Knight in the SableMountain; and how he imitated the penance of Beltenebros._ CERVANTES

  [Greek: All'est'ekeino panta lekta, panta de tolmaeta;] SOPHOCLES

  1895

  TO

  MY DEAR MOTHER

  CONTENTS

  The Race of Orven

  The Stone of the Edmundsbury Monks

  The S.S.

  THE RACE OF ORVEN

  Never without grief and pain could I remember the fate of PrinceZaleski--victim of a too importunate, too unfortunate Love, which thefulgor of the throne itself could not abash; exile perforce from hisnative land, and voluntary exile from the rest of men! Having renouncedthe world, over which, lurid and inscrutable as a falling star, he hadpassed, the world quickly ceased to wonder at him; and even I, to whom,more than to another, the workings of that just and passionate mind hadbeen revealed, half forgot him in the rush of things.

  But during the time that what was called the 'Pharanx labyrinth' wasexercising many of the heaviest brains in the land, my thought turnedrepeatedly to him; and even when the affair had passed from the generalattention, a bright day in Spring, combined perhaps with a latentmistrust of the _denoument_ of that dark plot, drew me to his place ofhermitage.

  I reached the gloomy abode of my friend as the sun set. It was a vastpalace of the older world standing lonely in the midst of woodland, andapproached by a sombre avenue of poplars and cypresses, through whichthe sunlight hardly pierced. Up this I passed, and seeking out thedeserted stables (which I found all too dilapidated to afford shelter)finally put up my _caleche_ in the ruined sacristy of an old Dominicanchapel, and turned my mare loose to browse for the night on a paddockbehind the domain.

  As I pushed back the open front door and entered the mansion, I couldnot but wonder at the saturnine fancy that had led this wayward man toselect a brooding-place so desolate for the passage of his days. Iregarded it as a vast tomb of Mausolus in which lay deep sepulchred howmuch genius, culture, brilliancy, power! The hall was constructed inthe manner of a Roman _atrium_, and from the oblong pool of turgidwater in the centre a troop of fat and otiose rats fled weaklysquealing at my approach. I mounted by broken marble steps to thecorridors running round the open space, and thence pursued my waythrough a mazeland of apartments--suite upon suite--along many a lengthof passage, up and down many stairs. Dust-clouds rose from theuncarpeted floors and choked me; incontinent Echo coughed answering_ricochets_ to my footsteps in the gathering darkness, and addedemphasis to the funereal gloom of the dwelling. Nowhere was there avestige of furniture--nowhere a trace of human life.

  After a long interval I came, in a remote tower of the building andnear its utmost summit, to a richly-carpeted passage, from the ceilingof which three mosaic lamps shed dim violet, scarlet and pale-roselights around. At the end I perceived two figures standing as if insilent guard on each side of a door tapestried with the python's skin.One was a post-replica in Parian marble of the nude Aphrodite ofCnidus; in the other I recognised the gigantic form of the negro Ham,the prince's only attendant, whose fierce, and glistening, and ebonvisage broadened into a grin of intelligence as I came nearer. Noddingto him, I pushed without ceremony into Zaleski's apartment.

  The room was not a large one, but lofty. Even in the semi-darkness ofthe very faint greenish lustre radiated from an open censerlike_lampas_ of fretted gold in the centre of the domed encausted roof, acertain incongruity of barbaric gorgeousness in the furnishing filledme with amazement. The air was heavy with the scented odour of thislight, and the fumes of the narcotic _cannabis sativa_--the base of the_bhang_ of the Mohammedans--in which I knew it to be the habit of myfriend to assuage himself. The hangings were of wine-coloured velvet,heavy, gold-fringed and embroidered at Nurshedabad. All the world knewPrince Zaleski to be a consummate _cognoscente_--a profound amateur--aswell as a savant and a thinker; but I was, nevertheless, astounded atthe mere multitudinousness of the curios he had contrived to crowd intothe space around him. Side by side rested a palaeolithic implement, aChinese 'wise man,' a Gnostic gem, an amphora of Graeco-Etruscan work.The general effect was a _bizarrerie_ of half-weird sheen and gloom.Flemish sepulchral brasses companied strangely with runic tablets,miniature paintings, a winged bull, Tamil scriptures on lacqueredleaves of the talipot, mediaeval reliquaries richly gemmed, Brahmingods. One whole side of the room was occupied by an organ whose thunderin that circumscribed place must have set all these relics of deadepochs clashing and jingling in fantastic dances. As I entered, thevaporous atmosphere was palpitating to the low, liquid tinkling of aninvisible musical box. The prince reclined on a couch from which adraping of cloth-of-silver rolled torrent over the floor. Beside him,stretched in its open sarcophagus which rested on three brazentrestles, lay the mummy of an ancient Memphian, from the upper part ofwhich the brown cerements had rotted or been rent, leaving thehideousness of the naked, grinning countenance exposed to view.

  Discarding his gemmed chibouque and an old vellum reprint of Anacreon,Zaleski rose hastily and greeted me with warmth, muttering at the sametime some commonplace about his 'pleasure' and the 'unexpectedness' ofmy visit. He then gave orders to Ham to prepare me a bed in one of theadjoining chambers. We passed the greater part of the night in adelightful stream of that somnolent and half-mystic talk which PrinceZaleski alone could initiate and sustain, during which he repeatedlypressed on me a concoction of Indian hemp resembling _hashish_,prepared by his own hands, and quite innocuous. It was after a simplebreakfast the next morning that I entered on the subject which waspartly the occasion of my visit. He lay back on his couch, volumed in aTurkish _beneesh_, and listened to me, a little wearily perhaps atfirst, with woven fingers, and the pale inverted eyes of old anchoritesand astrologers, the moony greenish light falling on his always wanfeatures.

  'You knew Lord Pharanx?' I asked.

  'I have met him in "the world." His son Lord Randolph, too, I saw onceat Court at Peterhof, and once again at the Winter Palace of the Tsar.I noticed in their great stature, shaggy heads of hair, ears of a verypeculiar conformation, and a certain aggressiveness of demeanour--astrong likeness between father and son.'

  I had brought with me a bundle of old newspapers, and comparing theseas I went on, I proceeded to lay the incidents before him.

  'The father,' I said, 'held, as you know, high office in a lateAdministration, and was one of our big luminaries in politics; he hasalso been President of the Council of several learned societies, andauthor of a book on Modern Ethics. His son was rapidly rising toeminence in the _corps diplomatique_, and lately (though, strictlyspeaking, _unebenbuertig_) contracted an affiance with the PrinzessinCharlotte Mariana Natalia of Morgen-ueppigen, a lady with a strain ofindubitable Hohenzollern blood in her royal veins. The Orven family isa very old and distinguished one, though--especially in moderndays--far from wealthy. However, some little time after Randolph hadbecome engaged to this royal lady, the father insured his life forimmense sums in various offices both in England and America, and thereproach of poverty is now swept from the race. Six months ago, almostsimultaneously, both father and son resigned their various positions_en bloc_. But all this, of course, I am telling you on the assumptionthat you have not already read it in the papers.'

  'A modern newspaper,' he said, 'being what it mostly is, is the onething insupportable to me at present. Believe me, I never see one.'

  'Well, then, Lord Pharanx, as I said, threw up his posts in the fulnessof his vigour, and retired to one of his country seats. A good manyyears ago, he an
d Randolph had a terrible row over some trifle, and,with the implacability that distinguishes their race, had not sinceexchanged a word. But some little time after the retirement of thefather, a message was despatched by him to the son, who was then inIndia. Considered as the first step in the _rapprochement_ of thisproud and selfish pair of beings, it was an altogether remarkablemessage, and was subsequently deposed to in evidence by a telegraphofficial; it ran:

  '"_Return. The beginning of the end is come._" Whereupon Randolph didreturn, and in three months from the date of his landing in England,Lord Pharanx was dead.'

  '_Murdered_?'

  A certain something in the tone in which this word was uttered byZaleski puzzled me. It left me uncertain whether he had addressed to mean exclamation of conviction, or a simple question. I must have lookedthis feeling, for he said at once:

  'I could easily, from your manner, surmise as much, you know. Perhaps