: The Prize by Grier Sydney C Pearse Alfred Illustrator - English fiction

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bject was to remain as near her husband as possible. At last I resolved on the strong measures from which I had shrunk at first, and bade her be ready, for I was coming to fetch her. What evil fate caused the arrival of that letter of mine to coincide with a visit of Prince Romanos to the Dardanian court? When I received an answer, it was to tell me that Olimpia had accompanied her husband on his return to Emathia, though the time was not yet propitious for him to acknowledge her. Then, when it was too late, I hesitated no longer, and went in search of my daughter. I found her in the island of Thamnos, just outside Emathian waters. Her husband had been obliged to visit Czarigrad, and durst not leave her behind at Therma. There was no prospect of his acknowledging her at present, so that she could not go with him. Highnesses, our interview was a sad one--it tears the heart to recall it. I besought my daughter on my knees to return with me--to force the hand of the man who was risking her reputation for his convenience. She refused, she had cast in her lot with him. Then I begged her to permit me to remain and confront him, to urge upon him the absolute necessity of postponing no longer the step which he constantly assured her it was his firm intention to take in the near future. If he would call in the servants and the crew of his vessel, and declare before them that she was his wife--I would be content for the present with that. The state entry into Therma, the public recognition, might come later. But she refused to let me stay. Evidently she feared what might happen if we met. She assured me solemnly that if I declared my conditions she would take sides with her husband, and agree with him that the time was not yet ripe. She and he and her personal attendants knew that she was his lawful wife, and with that she was content. Highnesses, she was not content. I saw it in her convulsed face, heard it in her agitated accents, but the husband now took the first place, and the father must yield. Sorrowfully I left my child, and since that day I never seen her."

"You heard from her, surely?" cried Zoe.

"Did she remain in Thamnos, or accompany the Prince to Therma?" asked Wylie.

"I did receive letters from her, madame. The letters were posted in Therma, Colonel, and she gave me to understand that she was occupying a villa on the Prince's property, not far from the city. To its actual position she gave me no clue--doubtless fearing that I might again attempt to see her. The first letter I received after our unhappy parting begged me very earnestly to make no further allusion to the question of her recognition, but to think of her as an ordinary wife, married to a private person whose business obliged him to be a good deal away from her. She had perfect confidence in her husband, feeling sure that he would acknowledge her at the earliest possible moment, and in the meantime she lived a rather lonely but by no means unhappy life. She amused herself with gardening and the study of the Emathian languages and her husband spent with her every moment that he could snatch from the cares of state. At length she referred of her own accord to the subject she had begged me not to mention. If her child should be a boy, she was sure the Prince would take that opportunity of acknowledging her. The child was born. It was a boy, and it was baptised John, after the last of the Emperors, by the Greek rite. Olimpia assured me continually of her husband's delight in his heir, but there was no word of recognition. At last I lost patience, Highnesses, for what could happen that could provide a more favourable moment for the announcement? I wrote to my child then that the Prince's perpetual postponement of his promise absolved me from my engagement of silence, and that I was intending to take steps to announce the marriage on my own account."

"That was a dangerous thing to do, monsieur," said Wylie.

"It was, Colonel. I recognise it now, but it was at the time that rumours of an alliance between Romanos and a Scythian Princess were freshly mooted. I desired to cut the ground from under his feet, in case he should actually be meditating any baseness of the kind. But, Highnesses, I endeavoured to mitigate any harshness which my proposal might seem to imply. I was about to visit Therma, I told Olimpia, and then I would lay before her husband a fact which would go far to remove any objections his subjects might be expected to entertain to the marriage."

"And pray, monsieur, what was that?" demanded Eirene, her pale face flushed, and her eyes glowing.

"Simply, madame, that in the poverty-stricken veteran before you, you behold the great-great-grandson of Maxim Psicha."

"Maxim Ghazi?" cried Wylie. "But why not have used that weapon before, Cavaliere?" For the name of the great Illyrian hero of the eighteenth century, who had built up a short-lived Christian state in his native highlands, and but for his early death by treachery, would probably have succeeded in driving the Roumis from Illyria, was one to conjure with among both Greeks and Slavs in Emathia.

"I was not aware of its value, Colonel. It is only the changes of these later years that have taught the world there is any Illyrian question at all. The formation of one Balkan state after another, and finally the emergence of Emathia from Roumi tyranny, have revived in the Illyrians the national feeling that has slumbered for generations, and which the Roumis did their best to stamp out by promoting local and tribal feuds. I have of course always been aware of my descent from the son of Maxim Psicha, whose mother fled with him to Magnagrecia on her husband's murder, and who married an heiress of the Pazzi and took her name, but it was not until last year, when a deputation of Illyrian notables visited me in my humble lodging, and invited me formally to place myself at the head of their struggle for freedom, that I recognised it had any bearings on present-day politics."

Wylie looked across at his brother-in-law with raised eyebrows, and Maurice spoke.

"You may not be aware, monsieur, that I myself was offered the crown of Illyria at the beginning of last year, and invited to negociate a British protectorate over the country when I refused it?"

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