"The pictures of him aren't handsome enough," declared a pretty girl, taking great care that I should hear.No doubt it was mere flattery.
But, in spite of these signs of approval and interest, the mass of the people received me in silence and with sullen looks, and my dear brother's portrait ornamented most of the windows--which was an ironical sort of greeting to the King.I was quite glad that he had been spared the unpleasant sight.He was a man of quick temper, and perhaps he would not have taken it so placidly as I did.
At last we were at the Cathedral.Its great grey front, embellished with hundreds of statues and boasting a pair of the finest oak doors in Europe, rose for the first time before me, and the sudden sense of my audacity almost overcame me.
Everything was in a mist as I dismounted.I saw the Marshal and Sapt dimly, and dimly the throng of gorgeously robed priests who awaited me.And my eyes were still dim as I walked up the great nave, with the pealing of the organ in my ears.
I saw nothing of the brilliant throng that filled it, I hardly distinguished the stately figure of the Cardinal as he rose from the archiepiscopal throne to greet me.
Two faces only stood out side by side clearly before my eyes--the face of a girl, pale and lovely, surmounted by a crown of the glorious Elphberg hair (for in a woman it is glorious), and the face of a man, whose full-blooded red cheeks, black hair, and dark deep eyes told me that at last I was in presence of my brother, Black Michael.And when he saw me his red cheeks went pale all in a moment, and his helmet fell with a clatter on the floor.Till that moment I believe that he had not realized that the King was in very truth come to Strelsau.
Of what followed next I remember nothing.I knelt before the altar and the Cardinal anointed my head.Then I rose to my feet, and stretched out my hand and took from him the crown of Ruritania and set it on my head, and I swore the old oath of the King;and (if it were a sin, may it be forgiven me) I received the Holy Sacrament there before them all.Then the great organ pealed out again, the Marshal bade the heralds proclaim me, and Rudolf the Fifth was crowned King; of which imposing ceremony an excellent picture hangs now in my dining-room.
The portrait of the King is very good.
Then the lady with the pale face and the glorious hair, her train held by two pages, stepped from her place and came to where I stood.And a herald cried:
"Her Royal Highness the Princess Flavia!"She curtsied low, and put her hand under mine and raised my hand and kissed it.And for an instant I thought what I had best do.
Then I drew her to me and kissed her twice on the cheek, and she blushed red, and--then his Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop slipped in front of Black Michael, and kissed my hand and presented me with a letter from the Pope--the first and last which I have received from that exalted quarter!
And then came the Duke of Strelsau.His step trembled, I swear, and he looked to the right and to the left, as a man looks who thinks on flight; and his face was patched with red and white, and his hand shook so that it jumped under mine, and I felt his lips dry and parched.
And I glanced at Sapt, who was smiling again into his beard, and, resolutely doing my duty in that station of life to which I had been marvellously called, I took my dear Michael by both hands and kissed him on the cheek.I think we were both glad when that was over!
