He stood erect. He caught his breath sharply. Here at his feet was, of all things, a tomb carved with the recumbent effigy of a woman. Now this part of the cave was lighted by lamps upon tall iron stands, so that everything was clearly visible, even to Jurgen, whose eyesight had of late years failed him. This was certainly a low flat tombstone such as Jurgen had seen in many churches: but the tinted effigy thereupon was curious, somehow Jurgen looked more closely. He touched the thing.

Then he recoiled, because there is no mistaking the feel of dead flesh. The effigy was not colored stone: it was the body of a dead woman. More unaccountable still, it was the body of Felise de Puysange, whom Jurgen had loved very long ago in Gatinais, a great many years before he set up in business as a pawnbroker.

Very strange it was to Jurgen again to see her face. He had often wondered what had become of this large brown woman; had wondered if he were really the first man for whom she had put a deceit upon her husband; and had wondered what sort of person Madame Felise de Puysange had been in reality.

"Two months it was that we played at intimacy, was it not, Felise? You comprehend, my dear, I really remember very little about you. But I recall quite clearly the door left just a-jar, and how as I opened it gently I would see first of all the lamp upon your dressing-table, turned down almost to extinction, and the glowing dust upon its glass shade. Is it not strange that our exceeding wickedness should have resulted in nothing save the memory of dust upon a lamp chimney? Yet you were very handsome, Felise. I dare say I would have liked you if I had ever known you. But when you told me of the child you had lost, and showed me his baby picture, I took a dislike to you. It seemed to me you were betraying that child by dealing over-generously with me: and always between us afterward was his little ghost. Yet I did not at all mind the deceits you put upon your husband. It is true I knew your husband rather intimately—. Well, and they tell me the good Vicomte was vastly pleased by the son you bore him some months after you and I had parted. So there was no great harm done, after all—"

Then Jurgen saw there was another woman's body lying like an effigy upon another low flat tomb, and beyond that another, and then still others. And Jurgen whistled.

"What, all of them!" he said. "Am I to be confronted with every pound of tender flesh I have embraced? Yes, here is Graine, and Rosamond, and Marcoueve, and Elinor. This girl, though, I do not remember at all. And this one is, I think, the little Jewess I purchased from Hassan Bey in Sidon, but how can one be sure? Still, this is certainly Judith, and this is Myrina. I have half a mind to look again for that mole, but I suppose it would be indecorous. Lord, how one's women do add up! There must be several scores of them in all. It is the sort of spectacle that turns a man to serious thinking. Well, but it is a great comfort to reflect that I dealt fairly with every one of them. Several of them treated me most unjustly, too. But that is past and done with: and I bear no malice toward such fickle and short-sighted creatures as could not be contented with one lover, and he the Jurgen that was!"

Thereafter, Jurgen, standing among his dead, spread out his arms in an embracing gesture.

"Hail to you, ladies, and farewell! for you and I have done with love. Well, love is very pleasant to observe as he advances, overthrowing all ancient memories with laughter. And yet for each gay lover who concedes the lordship of love, and wears intrepidly love's liveries, the end of all is death. Love's sowing is more agreeable than love's harvest: or, let us put it, he allures us into byways leading nowhither, among blossoms which fall before the first rough wind: so at the last, with much excitement and breath and valuable time quite wasted, we find that the end of all is death. Then would it have been more shrewd, dear ladies, to have avoided love? To the contrary, we were unspeakably wise to indulge the high-hearted insanity that love induced; since love alone can lend young people rapture, however transiently, in a world wherein the result of every human endeavor is transient, and the end of all is death."

Then Jurgen courteously bowed to his dead loves, and left them, and went forward as the cave stretched.

But now the light was behind him, so that Jurgen's shadow, as he came to a sharp turn in the cave, loomed suddenly upon the cave wall, confronting him. This shadow was clear-cut and unarguable.

Jurgen regarded it intently. He turned this way, then the other; he looked behind him, raised one hand, shook his head tentatively; then he twisted his head sideways with his chin well lifted, and squinted so as to get a profile view of this shadow. Whatever Jurgen did the shadow repeated, which was natural enough. The odd part was that it in nothing resembled the shadow which ought to attend any man, and this was an uncomfortable discovery to make in loneliness deep under ground.

"I do not exactly like this," said Jurgen. "Upon my word, I do not like this at all. It does not seem fair. It is perfectly preposterous. Well"—and here he shrugged,—"well, and what could anybody expect me to do about it? Ah, what indeed! So I shall treat the incident with dignified contempt, and continue my exploration of this cave."



9.

The Orthodox Rescue of Guenevere

Now the tale tells how the cave narrowed and again turned sharply, so that Jurgen came as through a corridor into quite another sort of underground chamber. Yet this also was a discomfortable place.

Here suspended from the roof of the vault was a kettle of quivering red flames. These lighted a very old and villainous looking man in full armor, girded with a sword, and crowned royally: he sat erect upon a throne, motionless, with staring eyes that saw nothing. Back of him Jurgen noted many warriors seated in rows, and all staring at Jurgen with wide-open eyes that saw nothing. The red flaming of the kettle was reflected in all these eyes, and to observe this was not pleasant.

Jurgen waited non-committally. Nothing happened. Then Jurgen saw that at this unengaging monarch's feet were three chests. The lids had been ripped from two of them, and these were filled with silver coins. Upon the middle chest, immediately before the king, sat a woman, with her face resting against the knees of the glaring, withered, motionless, old rascal.

"And this is a young woman. Obviously! Observe the glint of that thick coil of hair! the rich curve of the neck! Oh, clearly, a tidbit fit to fight for, against any moderate odds!"

So ran the thoughts of Jurgen. Bold as a dragon now, he stepped forward and lifted the girl's head.

Her eyes were closed. She was, even so, the most beautiful creature Jurgen had ever imagined.

"She does not breathe. And yet, unless memory fails me, this is certainly a living woman in my arms. Evidently this is a sleep induced by necromancy. Well, it is not for nothing I have read so many fairy tales. There are orthodoxies to be observed in the awakening of every enchanted princess. And Lisa, wherever she may be, poor dear! is nowhere in this neighborhood, because I hear nobody talking. So I may consider myself at liberty to do the traditional thing by this princess. Indeed, it is the only fair thing for me to do, and justice demands it."

In consequence, Jurgen kissed the girl. Her lips parted and softened, and they assumed a not unpleasant sort of submissive ardor. Her eyes, enormous when seen thus closely, had languorously opened, had viewed him without wonder, and then the lids had fallen, about half-way, just as, Jurgen remembered, the eyelids of a woman ought to do when she is being kissed properly. She clung a little, and now she shivered a little, but not with cold: Jurgen perfectly remembered that ecstatic shudder convulsing a woman's body: everything, in fine, was quite as it should be. So Jurgen put an end to the kiss, which, as you may surmise, was a tolerably lengthy affair.

His heart was pounding as though determined to burst from his body, and he could feel the blood tingling at his finger-tips. He wondered what in the world had come over him, who was too old for such emotions.

Yet, truly, this was the loveliest girl that Jurgen had ever imagined. Fair was she to look on, with her shining gray eyes and small smiling lips, a fairer person might no man boast of having seen. And she regarded Jurgen graciously, with her cheeks flushed by that red flickering overhead, and she was very lovely to observe. She was clothed in a robe of flame-colored silk, and about her neck was a collar of red gold. When she spoke her voice was music.

"I knew that you would come," the girl said, happily.

"I am very glad that I came," observed Jurgen.

"But time presses."

"Time sets an admirable example, my dear Princess—"

"Oh, messire, but do you not perceive that you have brought life into this horrible place! You have given of this life to me, in the most direct and speedy fashion. But life is very contagious. Already it is spreading by infection."

And Jurgen regarded the old king, as the girl indicated. The withered ruffian stayed motionless: but from his nostrils came slow augmenting jets of vapor, as though he were beginning to breathe in a chill place. This was odd, because the cave was not cold.

"And all the others too are snorting smoke," says Jurgen. "Upon my word I think this is a delightful place to be leaving."

First, though, he unfastened the king's sword-belt, and girded himself therewith, sword, dagger and all. "Now I have arms befitting my fine shirt," says Jurgen.

Then the girl showed him a sort of passage way, by which they ascended forty-nine steps roughly hewn in stone, and so came to daylight. At the top of the stairway was an iron trapdoor, and this door at the girl's instruction Jurgen lowered. There was no way of fastening the door from without.

"But Thragnar is not to be stopped by bolts or padlocks," the girl said. "Instead, we must straightway mark this door with a cross, since that is a symbol which Thragnar cannot pass."

Jurgen's hand had gone instinctively to his throat. Now he shrugged. "My dear young lady, I no longer carry the cross. I must fight Thragnar with other weapons."

"Two sticks will serve, laid crosswise—"

Jurgen submitted that nothing would be easier than to lift the trapdoor, and thus dislodge the sticks. "They will tumble apart without anyone having to touch them, and then what becomes of your crucifix?"

"Why, how quickly you think of everything!" she said, admiringly. "Here is a strip from my sleeve, then. We will tie the twigs together."

Jurgen did this, and laid upon the trapdoor a recognizable crucifix. "Still, when anyone raises the trapdoor whatever lies upon it will fall off. Without disparaging the potency of your charm, I cannot but observe that in this case it is peculiarly difficult to handle. Magician or no, I would put heartier faith in a stout padlock."

So the girl tore another strip, from the hem of her gown, and then another from her right sleeve, and with these they fastened their cross to the surface of the trapdoor, in such a fashion that the twigs could not be dislodged from beneath. They mounted the fine steed whose bridle was marked with a coronet, the girl riding pillion, and they turned westward, since the girl said this was best.

For, as she now told Jurgen, she was Guenevere, the daughter of Gogyrvan, King of Glathion and the Red Islands. So Jurgen told her he was the Duke of Logreus, because he felt it was not appropriate for a pawnbroker to be rescuing princesses: and he swore, too, that he would restore her safely to her father, whatever Thragnar might attempt. And all the story of her nefarious capture and imprisonment by King Thragnar did Dame Guenevere relate to Jurgen, as they rode together through the pleasant May morning.

She considered the Troll King could not well molest them. "For now you have his charmed sword, Caliburn, the only weapon with which Thragnar can be slain. Besides, the sign of the cross he cannot pass. He beholds and trembles."

"My dear Princess, he has but to push up the trapdoor from beneath, and the cross, being tied to the trapdoor, is promptly moved out of his way. Failing this expedient, he can always come out of the cave by the other opening, through which I entered. If this Thragnar has any intelligence at all and a reasonable amount of tenacity, he will presently be at hand."

"Even so, he can do no harm unless we accept a present from him. The difficulty is that he will come in disguise."

"Why, then, we will accept gifts from nobody."

"There is, moreover, a sign by which you may distinguish Thragnar. For if you deny what he says, he will promptly concede you are in the right. This was the curse put upon him by Miramon Lluagor, for a detection and a hindrance."

"By that unhuman trait," says Jurgen, "Thragnar ought to be very easy to distinguish."



10.

Pitiful Disguises of Thragnar

Next, the tale tells that as Jurgen and the Princess were nearing Gihon, a man came riding toward them, full armed in black, and having a red serpent with an apple in its mouth painted upon his shield.

"Sir knight," says he, speaking hollowly from the closed helmet, "you must yield to me that lady."

"I think," says Jurgen, civilly, "that you are mistaken."

So they fought, and presently, since Caliburn was a resistless weapon, and he who wore the scabbard of Caliburn could not be wounded, Jurgen prevailed; and gave the strange knight so heavy a buffet that the knight fell senseless.

"Do you think," says Jurgen, about to unlace his antagonist's helmet, "that this is Thragnar?"

"There is no possible way of telling," replied Dame Guenevere: "if it is the Troll King he should have offered you gifts, and when you contradicted him he should have admitted you were right. Instead, he proffered nothing, and to contradiction he answered nothing, so that proves nothing."

"But silence is a proverbial form of assent. At all events, we will have a look at him."

"But that too will prove nothing, since Thragnar goes about his mischiefs so disguised by enchantments as invariably to resemble somebody else, and not himself at all."

"Such dishonest habits introduce an element of uncertainty, I grant you," says Jurgen. "Still, one can rarely err by keeping on the safe side. This person is, in any event, a very ill-bred fellow, with probably immoral intentions. Yes, caution is the main thing, and in justice to ourselves we will keep on the safe side."

So without unloosing the helmet, he struck off the strange knight's head, and left him thus. The Princess was now mounted on the horse of their deceased assailant.

"Assuredly," says Jurgen then, "a magic sword is a fine thing, and a very necessary equipment, too, for a knight errant of my age."

"But you talk as though you were an old man, Messire de Logreus!"

"Come now," thinks Jurgen, "this is a princess of rare discrimination. What, after all, is forty-and-something when one is well-preserved? This uncommonly intelligent girl reminds me a little of Marcoueve, whom I loved in Artein: besides, she does not look at me as women look at an elderly man. I like this princess, in fact, I adore this princess. I wonder now what would she say if I told her as much?"

But Jurgen did not tempt chance that time, for just then they encountered a boy who had frizzed hair and painted cheeks. He walked mincingly, in a curious garb of black bespangled with gold lozenges, and he carried a gilded dung fork.

* * * * *

Then Jurgen and the Princess came to a black and silver pavilion standing by the roadside. At the door of the pavilion was an apple-tree in blossom: from a branch of this tree was suspended a black hunting-horn, silver-mounted. A woman waited there alone. Before her was a chess-board, with the ebony and silver pieces set ready for a game, and upon the table to her left hand glittered flagons and goblets of silver. Eagerly this woman rose and came toward the travellers.

"Oh, my dear Jurgen," says she, "but how fine you look in that new shirt you are wearing! But there was never a man had better taste in dress, as I have always said: and it is long I have waited for you in this pavilion, which belongs to a black gentleman who seems to be a great friend of yours. And he went into Crim Tartary this morning, with some missionaries, by the worst piece of luck, for I know how sorry he will be to miss you, dear. Now, but I am forgetting that you must be very tired and thirsty, my darling, after your travels. So do you and the young lady have a sip of this, and then we will be telling one another of our adventures."

For this woman had the appearance of Jurgen's wife, Dame Lisa, and of none other.

Jurgen regarded her with two minds. "You certainly seem to be Lisa. But it is a long while since I saw Lisa in such an amiable mood."

"You must know," says she, still smiling, "that I have learned to appreciate you since we were separated."

"The fiend who stole you from me may possibly have brought about that wonder. None the less, you have met me riding at adventure with a young woman. And you have assaulted neither of us, you have not even raised your voice. No, quite decidedly, here is a miracle beyond the power of any fiend."

"Ah, but I have been doing a great deal of thinking, Jurgen dear, as to our difficulties in the past. And it seems to me that you were almost always in the right."

Guenevere nudged Jurgen. "Did you note that? This is certainly Thragnar in disguise."

"I am beginning to think that at all events it is not Lisa." Then Jurgen magisterially cleared his throat. "Lisa, if you indeed be Lisa, you must understand I am through with you. The plain truth is that you tire me. You talk and talk: no woman breathing equals you at mere volume and continuity of speech: but you say nothing that I have not heard seven hundred and eighty times if not oftener."

"You are perfectly right, my dear," says Dame Lisa, piteously. "But then I never pretended to be as clever as you."

"Spare me your beguilements, if you please. And besides, I am in love with this princess. Now spare me your recriminations, also, for you have no real right to complain. If you had stayed the person whom I promised the priest to love, I would have continued to think the world of you. But you did nothing of the sort. From a cuddlesome and merry girl, who thought whatever I did was done to perfection, you elected to develop into an uncommonly plain and short-tempered old woman." And Jurgen paused. "Eh?" said he, "and did you not do this?"

Dame Lisa answered sadly: "My dear, you are perfectly right, from your way of thinking. However, I could not very well help getting older."

"But, oh, dear me!" says Jurgen, "this is astonishingly inadequate impersonation, as any married man would see at once. Well, I made no contract to love any such plain and short-tempered person. I repudiate the claims of any such person, as manifestly unfair. And I pledge undying affection to this high and noble Princess Guenevere, who is the fairest lady that I have ever seen."

"You are right," wailed Dame Lisa, "and I was entirely to blame. It was because I loved you, and wanted you to get on in the world and be a credit to my father's line of business, that I nagged you so. But you will never understand the feelings of a wife, nor will you understand that even now I desire your happiness above all else. Here is our wedding-ring, then, Jurgen. I give you back your freedom. And I pray that this princess may make you very happy, my dear. For surely you deserve a princess if ever any man did."

Jurgen shook his head. "It is astounding that a demon so much talked about should be so poor an impersonator. It raises the staggering supposition that the majority of married women must go to Heaven. As for your ring, I am not accepting gifts this morning, from anyone. But you understand, I trust, that I am hopelessly enamored of the Princess on account of her beauty."

"Oh, and I cannot blame you, my dear. She is the loveliest person I have ever seen."

"Hah, Thragnar!" says Jurgen, "I have you now. A woman might, just possibly, have granted her own homeliness: but no woman that ever breathed would have conceded the Princess had a ray of good looks."

So with Caliburn he smote, and struck off the head of this thing which foolishly pretended to be Dame Lisa.

"Well done! oh, bravely done!" cried Guenevere. "Now the enchantment is dissolved, and Thragnar is slain by my clever champion."

"I could wish there were some surer sign of that," said Jurgen. "I would have preferred that the pavilion and the decapitated Troll King had vanished with a peal of thunder and an earthquake and such other phenomena as are customary. Instead, nothing is changed except that the woman who was talking to me a moment since now lies at my feet in a very untidy condition. You conceive, madame, I used to tease her about that twisted little-finger, in the days before we began to squabble: and it annoys me that Thragnar should not have omitted even Lisa's crooked little-finger on her left hand. Yes, such painstaking carefulness worries me. For you conceive also, madame, it would be more or less awkward if I had made an error, and if the appearance were in reality what it seemed to be, because I was pretty trying sometimes. At all events, I have done that which seemed equitable, and I have found no comfort in the doing of it, and I do not like this place."



11.

Appearance of the Duke of Logreus

So Jurgen brushed from the table the chessmen that were set there in readiness for a game, and he emptied the silver flagons upon the ground. His reasons for not meddling with the horn he explained to the Princess: she shivered, and said that, such being the case, he was certainly very sensible. Then they mounted, and departed from the black and silver pavilion. They came thus without further adventure to Gogyrvan Gawr's city of Cameliard.

Now there was shouting and the bells all rang when the people knew their Princess was returned to them: the houses were hung with painted cloths and banners, and trumpets sounded, as Guenevere and Jurgen came to the King in his Hall of Judgment. And this Gogyrvan, that was King of Glathion and Lord of Enisgarth and Camwy and Sargyll, came down from his wide throne, and he embraced first Guenevere, then Jurgen.

"And demand of me what you will, Duke of Logreus," said Gogyrvan, when he had heard the champion's name, "and it is yours for the asking. For you have restored to me the best loved daughter that ever was the pride of a high king."

"Sir," replied Jurgen, reasonably, "a service rendered so gladly should be its own reward. So I am asking that you do in turn restore to me the Princess Guenevere, in honorable marriage, do you understand, because I am a poor lorn widower, I am tolerably certain, but I am quite certain I love your daughter with my whole heart."

Thus Jurgen, whose periods were confused by emotion.

"I do not see what the condition of your heart has to do with any such unreasonable request. And you have no good sense to be asking this thing of me when here are the servants of Arthur, that is now King of the Britons, come to ask for my daughter as his wife. That you are Duke of Logreus you tell me, and I concede a duke is all very well: but I expect you in return to concede a king takes precedence, with any man whose daughter is marriageable. But to-morrow or the next day it may be, you and I will talk over your reward more privately. Meanwhile it is very queer and very frightened you are looking, to be the champion who conquered Thragnar."

For Jurgen was staring at the great mirror behind the King's throne. In this mirror Jurgen saw the back of Gogyrvan's crowned head, and beyond this, Jurgen saw a queer and frightened looking young fellow, with sleek black hair, and an impudent nose, and wide-open bright brown eyes which were staring hard at Jurgen: and the lad's very red and very heavy lips were parted, so that you saw what fine strong teeth he had: and he wore a glittering shirt with curious figures on it

"I was thinking," says Jurgen, and he saw the lad in the mirror was speaking too, "I was thinking that is a remarkable mirror you have there."

"It is like any other mirror," replies the King, "in that it shows things as they are. But if you fancy it as your reward, why, take it and welcome."

"And are you still talking of rewards!" cries Jurgen. "Why, if that mirror shows things as they are, I have come out of my borrowed Wednesday still twenty-one. Oh, but it was the clever fellow I was, to flatter Mother Sereda so cunningly, and to fool her into such generosity! And I wonder that you who are only a king, with bleared eyes under your crown, and with a drooping belly under all your royal robes, should be talking of rewarding a fine young fellow of twenty-one, for there is nothing you have which I need be wanting now."

"Then you will not be plaguing me any more with your nonsense about my daughter: and that is excellent news."

"But I have no requirement to be asking your good graces now," said Jurgen, "nor the good will of any man alive that has a handsome daughter or a handsome wife. For now I have the aid of a lad that was very recently made Duke of Logreus: and with his countenance I can look out for myself, and I can get justice done me everywhere, in all the bedchambers of the world."

And Jurgen snapped his fingers, and was about to turn away from the King. There was much sunlight in the hall, so that Jurgen in this half-turn confronted his shadow as it lay plain upon the flagstones. And Jurgen looked at it very intently.

"Of course," said Jurgen presently, "I only meant in a manner of speaking, sir: and was paraphrasing the splendid if hackneyed passage from Sornatius, with which you are doubtless familiar, in which he goes on to say, so much more beautifully than I could possibly express without quoting him word for word, that all this was spoken jestingly, and without the least intention of offending anybody, oh, anybody whatever, I can assure you, sir."

"Very well," said Gogyrvan Gawr: and he smiled, for no reason that was apparent to Jurgen, who was still watching his shadow sidewise. "To-morrow, I repeat, I must talk with you more privately. To-day I am giving a banquet such as was never known in these parts, because my daughter is restored to me, and because my daughter is going to be queen over all the Britons."

So said Gogyrvan, that was King of Glathion and Lord of Enisgarth and Camwy and Sargyll: and this was done. And everywhere at the banquet Jurgen heard talk of this King Arthur who was to marry Dame Guenevere, and of the prophecy which Merlin Ambrosius had made as to the young monarch. For Merlin had predicted:

"He shall afford succor, and shall tread upon the necks of his enemies: the isles of the ocean shall be subdued by him, and he shall possess the forests of Gaul: the house of Romulus shall fear his rage, and his acts shall be food for the narrators."

"Why, then," says Jurgen, to himself, "this monarch reminds me in all things of David of Israel, who was so splendid and famous, and so greedy, in the ancient ages. For to these forests and islands and necks and other possessions, this Arthur Pendragon must be adding my one ewe lamb; and I lack a Nathan to convert him to repentance. Now, but this, to be sure, is a very unfair thing."

Then Jurgen looked again into a mirror: and presently the eyes of the lad he found therein began to twinkle.

"Have at you, David!" said Jurgen, valorously; "since after all, I see no reason to despair."



12.

Excursus of Yolande's Undoing

Now Jurgen, self-appointed Duke of Logreus, abode at the court of King Gogyrvan. The month of May passed quickly and pleasantly: but the monstrous shadow which followed Jurgen did not pass. Still, no one noticed it: that was the main thing. For himself, he was not afraid of shadows, and the queerness of this one was not enough to distract his thoughts from Guenevere, nor from his love-making with Guenevere.

For these were quiet times in Glathion, now that the war with Rience of Northgalis was satisfactorily ended: and love-making was now everywhere in vogue. By way of diversion, gentlemen hunted and fished and rode a-hawking and amicably slashed and battered one another in tournaments: but their really serious pursuit was lovemaking, after the manner of chivalrous persons, who knew that the King's trumpets would presently be summoning them into less softly furnished fields of action, from one or another of which they would return feet foremost on a bier. So Jurgen sighed and warbled and made eyes with many excellent fighting-men: and the Princess listened with many other ladies whose hearts were not of flint. And Gogyrvan meditated.

Now it was the kingly custom of Gogyrvan when his dinner was spread at noontide, not to go to meat until all such as demanded justice from him had been furnished with a champion to redress the wrong. One day as the gaunt old King sat thus in his main hall, upon a seat of green rushes covered with yellow satin, and with a cushion of yellow satin under his elbow, and with his barons ranged about him according to their degrees, a damsel came with a very heart-rending tale of the oppression that was on her.

Gogyrvan blinked at her, and nodded. "You are the handsomest woman I have seen in a long while," says he, irrelevantly. "You are a woman I have waited for. Duke Jurgen of Logreus will undertake this adventure."

There being no help for it, Jurgen rode off with this Dame Yolande, not very well pleased: but as they rode he jested with her. And so, with much laughter by the way, Yolande conducted him to the Green Castle, of which she had been dispossessed by Graemagog, a most formidable giant.

"Now prepare to meet your death, sir knight!" cried Graemagog, laughing horribly, and brandishing his club; "for all knights who come hither I have sworn to slay."

"Well, if truth-telling were a sin you would be a very virtuous giant," says Jurgen, and he flourished Thragnar's sword, resistless Caliburn.

Then they fought, and Jurgen killed Graemagog. Thus was the Green Castle restored to Dame Yolande, and the maidens who attended her aforetime were duly released from the cellarage. They were now maidens by courtesy only, but so tender is the heart of women that they all wept over Graemagog.

Yolande was very grateful, and proffered every manner of reward.

"But, no, I will take none of these fine jewels, nor money, nor lands either," says Jurgen. "For Logreus, I must tell you, is a fairly well-to-do duchy, and the killing of giants is by way of being my favorite pastime. He is well paid that is well satisfied. Yet if you must reward me for such a little service, do you swear to do what you can to get me the love of my lady, and that will suffice."

Yolande, without any particular enthusiasm, consented to attempt this: and indeed Yolande, at Jurgen's request, made oath upon the Four Evangelists that she would do everything within her power to aid him.

"Very well," said Jurgen, "you have sworn, and it is you whom I love."

Surprise now made her lovely. Yolande was frankly delighted at the thought of marrying the young Duke of Logreus, and offered to send for a priest at once.

"My dear," says Jurgen, "there is no need to bother a priest about our private affairs."

She took his meaning, and sighed. "Now I regret," said she, "that I made so solemn an oath. Your trick was unfair."

"Oh, not at all," said Jurgen: "and presently you will not regret it. For indeed the game is well worth the candle."

"How is that shown, Messire de Logreus?"

"Why, by candle-light," says Jurgen,—"naturally."

"In that event, we will talk no further of it until this evening."

So that evening Yolande sent for him. She was, as Gogyrvan had said, a remarkably handsome woman, sleek and sumptuous and crowned with a wealth of copper-colored hair. To-night she was at her best in a tunic of shimmering blue, with a surcote of gold embroidery, and with gold embroidered pendent sleeves that touched the floor. Thus she was when Jurgen came to her.

"Now," says Yolande, frowning, "you may as well come out straightforwardly with what you were hinting at this morning."

But first Jurgen looked about the apartment, and it was lighted by a tall gilt stand whereon burned candles.

He counted these, and he whistled. "Seven candles! upon my word, sweetheart, you do me great honor, for this is a veritable illumination. To think of it, now, that you should honor me, as people do saints, with seven candles! Well, I am only mortal, but none the less I am Jurgen, and I shall endeavor to repay this sevenfold courtesy without discount."

"Oh, Messire de Logreus," cried Dame Yolande, "but what incomprehensible nonsense you talk! You misinterpret matters, for I can assure you I had nothing of that sort in mind. Besides, I do not know what you are talking about."

"Indeed, I must warn you that my actions often speak more unmistakably than my words. It is what learned persons term an idiosyncrasy."

"—And I certainly do not see how any of the saints can be concerned in this. If you had said the Four Evangelists now—! For we were talking of the Four Evangelists, you remember, this morning—Oh, but how stupid it is of you, Messire de Logreus, to stand there grinning and looking at me in a way that makes me blush!"

"Well, that is easily remedied," said Jurgen, as he blew out the candles, "since women do not blush in the dark."

"What do you plan, Messire de Logreus?"

"Ah, do not be alarmed!" said Jurgen. "I shall deal fairly with you."

And in fact Yolande confessed afterward that, considering everything, Messire de Logreus was very generous. Jurgen confessed nothing: and as the room was profoundly dark nobody else can speak with authority as to what happened there. It suffices that the Duke of Logreus and the Lady of the Green Castle parted later on the most friendly terms.

"You have undone me, with your games and your candles and your scrupulous returning of courtesies," said Yolande, and yawned, for she was sleepy; "but I fear that I do not hate you as much as I ought to."

"No woman ever does," says Jurgen, "at this hour." He called for breakfast, then kissed Yolande—for this, as Jurgen had said, was their hour of parting,—and he rode away from the Green Castle in high spirits.

"Why, what a thing it is again to be a fine young fellow!" said Jurgen. "Well, even though her big brown eyes protrude too much—something like a lobster's—she is a splendid woman, that Dame Yolande: and it is a comfort to reflect I have seen justice was done her."

Then he rode back to Cameliard, singing with delight in the thought that he was riding toward the Princess Guenevere, whom he loved with his whole heart.



13.

Philosophy of Gogyrvan Gawr

At Cameliard the young Duke of Logreus spent most of his time in the company of Guenevere, whose father made no objection overtly. Gogyrvan had his promised talk with Jurgen.

"I lament that Dame Yolande dealt over-thriftily with you," the King said, first of all: "for I estimated you two would be as spark and tinder, kindling between you an amorous conflagration to burn up all this nonsense about my daughter."

"Thrift, sir," said Jurgen, discreetly, "is a proverbial virtue, and fires may not consume true love."

"That is the truth," Gogyrvan admitted, "whoever says it." And he sighed.

Then for a while he sat in nodding meditation. Tonight the old King wore a disreputably rusty gown of black stuff, with fur about the neck and sleeves of it, and his scant white hair was covered by a very shabby black cap. So he huddled over a small fire in a large stone fireplace carved with shields; beside him was white wine and red, which stayed untasted while Gogyrvan meditated upon things that fretted him.

"Now, then!" says Gogyrvan Gawr: "this marriage with the high King of the Britons must go forward, of course. That was settled last year, when Arthur and his devil-mongers, the Lady of the Lake and Merlin Ambrosius, were at some pains to rescue me at Carohaise. I estimate that Arthur's ambassadors, probably the devil-mongers themselves, will come for my daughter before June is out. Meanwhile, you two have youth and love for playthings, and it is spring."

"What is the season of the year to me," groaned Jurgen, "when I reflect that within a week or so the lady of my heart will be borne away from me forever? How can I be happy, when all the while I know the long years of misery and vain regret are near at hand?"

"You are saying that," observed the King, "in part because you drank too much last night, and in part because you think it is expected of you. For in point of fact, you are as happy as anyone is permitted to be in this world, through the simple reason that you are young. Misery, as you employ the word, I consider to be a poetical trophe: but I can assure you that the moment you are no longer young the years of vain regret will begin, either way."

"That is true," said Jurgen, heartily.

"How do you know? Now then, put it I were insane enough to marry my daughter to a mere duke, you would grow damnably tired of her: I can assure you of that also, for in disposition Guenevere is her sainted mother all over again. She is nice looking, of course, because in that she takes after my side of the family: but, between ourselves, she is not particularly intelligent, and she will always be making eyes at some man or another. To-day it appears to be your turn to serve as her target, in a fine glittering shirt of which the like was never seen in Glathion. I deplore, but even so I cannot deny, your rights as the champion who rescued her: and I must bid you make the most of that turn."

"Meanwhile, it occurs to me, sir, that it is unusual to betroth your daughter to one man, and permit her to go freely with another."

"If you insist upon it," said Gogyrvan Gawr, "I can of course lock up the pair of you, in separate dungeons, until the wedding day. Meanwhile, it occurs to me you should be the last commentator to grumble."

"Why, I tell you plainly, sir, that critical persons would say you are taking very small care of your daughter's honor."

"To that there are several answers," replied the King. "One is that I remember my late wife as tenderly as possible, and I reflect I have only her word for it as to Guenevere's being my daughter. Another is that, though my daughter is a quiet and well-conducted young woman, I never heard King Thragnar was anything of this sort."

"Oh, sir," said Jurgen, horrified, "whatever are you hinting!"

"All sorts of things, however, happen in caves, things which it is wiser to ignore in sunlight. So I ignore: I ask no questions: my business is to marry my daughter acceptably, and that only. Such discoveries as may be made by her husband afterward are his affair, not mine. This much I might tell you, Messire de Logreus, by way of answer. But the real answer is to bid you consider this: that a woman's honor is concerned with one thing only, and it is a thing with which the honor of a man is not concerned at all."

"But now you talk in riddles, King, and I wonder what it is you would have me do."

Gogyrvan grinned. "Obviously, I advise you to give thanks you were born a man, because that sturdier sex has so much less need to bother over breakage."

"What sort of breakage, sir?" says Jurgen.

Gogyrvan told him.

Duke Jurgen for the second time looked properly horrified. "Your aphorisms, King, are abominable, and of a sort unlikely to quiet my misery. However, we were speaking of your daughter, and it is she who must be considered rather than I."

"Now I perceive that you take my meaning perfectly. Yes, in all matters which concern my daughter I would have you lie like a gentleman."

"Well, I am afraid, sir," said Jurgen, after a pause, "that you are a person of somewhat degraded ideals."

"Ah, but you are young. Youth can afford ideals, being vigorous enough to stand the hard knocks they earn their possessor. But I am an old fellow cursed with a tender heart and tolerably keen eyes. That combination, Messire de Logreus, is one which very often forces me to jeer out of season, simply because I know myself to be upon the verge of far more untimely tears."

Thus Gogyrvan replied. He was silent for a while, and he contemplated the fire. Then he waved a shriveled hand toward the window, and Gogyrvan began to speak, meditatively:

"Messire de Logreus, it is night in my city of Cameliard. And somewhere one of those roofs harbors a girl whom we will call Lynette. She has a lover—we will say he is called Sagramor. The names do not matter. Tonight, as I speak with you, Lynette lies motionless in the carved wide bed that formerly was her mother's. She is thinking of Sagramor. The room is dark save where moonlight silvers the diamond-shaped panes of ancient windows. In every corner of the room mysterious quivering suggestions lurk."

"Ah, sire," says Jurgen, "you also are a poet!"

"Do not interrupt me, then! Lynette, I repeat, is thinking of Sagramor. Again they sit near the lake, under an apple-tree older than Rome. The knotted branches of the tree are upraised as in benediction: and petals—petals, fluttering, drifting, turning,—interminable white petals fall silently in the stillness. Neither speaks: for there is no need. Silently he brushes a petal from the blackness of her hair, and silently he kisses her. The lake is dusky and hard-seeming as jade. Two lonely stars hang low in the green sky. It is droll that the chest of a man is hairy, oh, very droll! And a bird is singing, a silvery needle of sound moves fitfully in the stillness. Surely high Heaven is thus quietly colored and thus strangely lovely. So at least thinks little Lynette, lying motionless like a little mouse, in the carved wide bed wherein Lynette was born."

"A very moving touch, that," Jurgen interpolated.

"Now, there is another sort of singing: for now the pot-house closes, big shutters bang, feet shuffle, a drunken man hiccoughs in his singing. It is a love-song he is murdering. He sheds inexplicable tears as he lurches nearer and nearer to Lynette's window, and his heart is all magnanimity, for Sagramor is celebrating his latest conquest. Do you not think that this or something very like this is happening to-night in my city of Cameliard, Messire de Logreus?".

"It happens momently," said Jurgen, "everywhere. For thus is every woman for a little while, and thus is every man for all time."

"That being a dreadful truth," continued Gogyrvan, "you may take it as one of the many reasons why I jeer out of season in order to stave off far more untimely tears. For this thing happens: in my city it happens, and in my castle it happens. King or no, I am powerless to prevent its happening. So I can but shrug and hearten my old blood with a fresh bottle. No less, I regard the young woman, who is quite possibly my daughter, with considerable affection: and it would be salutary for you to remember that circumstance, Messire de Logreus, if ever you are tempted to be candid."

Jurgen was horrified. "But with the Princess, sir, it is unthinkable that I should not deal fairly."

King Gogyrvan continued to look at Jurgen. Gogyrvan Gawr said nothing, and not a muscle of him moved.

"Although of course," said Jurgen, "I would, in simple justice to her, not ever consider volunteering any information likely to cause pain."

"Again I perceive," said Gogyrvan, "that you understand me. Yet I did not speak of my daughter only, but of everybody."

"How then, sir, would you have me deal with everybody?"

"Why, I can but repeat my words," says Gogyrvan, very patiently: "I would have you lie like a gentleman. And now be off with you, for I am going to sleep. I shall not be wide awake again until my daughter is safely married. And that is absolutely all I can do for you."

"Do you think this is reputable conduct, King?"

"Oh, no!" says Gogyrvan, surprised. "It is what we call philanthropy."



14.

Preliminary Tactics of Duke Jurgen

So Jurgen abode at court, and was tolerably content for a little while. He loved a princess, the fairest and most perfect of mortal women; and loved her (a circumstance to which he frequently recurred) as never any other man had loved in the world's history: and very shortly he was to stand by and see her married to another. Here was a situation to delight the chivalrous court of Glathion, for every requirement of romance was exactly fulfilled.

Now the appearance of Guenevere, whom Jurgen loved with an entire heart, was this:—She was of middling height, with a figure not yet wholly the figure of a woman. She had fine and very thick hair, and the color of it was the yellow of corn floss. When Guenevere undid her hair it was a marvel to Jurgen to note how snugly this hair descended about the small head and slender throat, and then broadened boldly and clothed her with a loose soft foam of pallid gold. For Jurgen delighted in her hair; and with increasing intimacy, loved to draw great strands of it back of his head, crossing them there, and pressing soft handfuls of her perfumed hair against his cheeks as he kissed the Princess.

The head of Guenevere, be it repeated, was small: you wondered at the proud free tossing movements of that little head which had to sustain the weight of so much hair. The face of Guenevere was colored tenderly and softly: it made the faces of other women seem the work of a sign-painter, just splotched in anyhow. Gray eyes had Guenevere, veiled by incredibly long black lashes that curved incredibly. Her brows arched rather high above her eyes: that was almost a fault. Her nose was delicate and saucy: her chin was impudence made flesh: and her mouth was a tiny and irresistible temptation.

"And so on, and so on! But indeed there is no sense at all in describing this lovely girl as though I were taking an inventory of my shopwindow," said Jurgen. "Analogues are all very well, and they have the unanswerable sanction of custom: none the less, when I proclaim that my adored mistress's hair reminds me of gold I am quite consciously lying. It looks like yellow hair, and nothing else: nor would I willingly venture within ten feet of any woman whose head sprouted with wires, of whatever metal. And to protest that her eyes are as gray and fathomless as the sea is very well also, and the sort of thing which seems expected of me: but imagine how horrific would be puddles of water slopping about in a lady's eye-sockets! If we poets could actually behold the monsters we rhyme of, we would scream and run. Still, I rather like this sirvente."

For he was making a sirvente in praise of Guenevere. It was the pleasant custom of Gogyrvan's court that every gentleman must compose verses in honor of the lady of whom he was hopelessly enamored; as well as that in these verses he should address the lady (as one whose name was too sacred to mention) otherwise than did her sponsors. So Duke Jurgen of Logreus duly rhapsodized of his Phyllida.

"I borrow for my dear love the appellation of that noted but by much inferior lady who was beloved by Ariphus of Belsize," he explained. "You will remember Poliger suspects she was a princess of the house of Scleroveus: and you of course recall Pisander's masterly summing-up of the probabilities, in his Heraclea."

"Oh, yes," they said. And the courtiers of Gogyrvan Gawr, like Mother Sereda, were greatly impressed by young Duke Jurgen's erudition.

For Jurgen was Duke of Logreus nowadays, with his glittering shirt and the coronet upon his bridle to show for it. Awkwardly this proved to be an earl's coronet, but incongruities are not always inexplicable.

"It was Earl Giarmuid's horse. You have doubtless heard of Giarmuid: but to ask that is insulting."

"Oh, not at all. It is humor. We perfectly understand your humor, Duke Jurgen."

"And a very pretty fighter I found this famous Giarmuid as I traveled westward. And since he killed my steed in the heat of our conversation, I was compelled to take over his horse, after I had given this poor Giarmuid proper interment. Oh, yes, a very pretty fighter, and I had heard much talk of him in Logreus. He was Lord of Ore and Persaunt, you remember, though of course the estate came by his mother's side."

"Oh, yes," they said. "You must not think that we of Glathion are quite shut out from the great world. We have heard of all these affairs. And we have also heard fine things of your duchy of Logreus, messire."

"Doubtless," said Jurgen; and turned again to his singing.

"Lo, for I pray to thee, resistless Love," he descanted, "that thou to-day make cry unto my love, to Phyllida whom I, poor Logreus, love so tenderly, not to deny me love! Asked why, say thou my drink and food is love, in days wherein I think and brood on love, and truly find naught good in aught save love, since Phyllida hath taught me how to love."

Here Jurgen groaned with nicely modulated ardor; and he continued: "If she avow such constant hate of love as would ignore my great and constant love, plead thou no more! With listless lore of love woo Death resistlessly, resistless Love, in place of her that saith such scorn of love as lends to Death the lure and grace I love."

Thus Jurgen sang melodiously of his Phyllida, and meant thereby (as everybody knew) the Princess Guenevere. Since custom compelled him to deal in analogues, he dealt wholesale. Gems and metals, the blossoms of the field and garden, fires and wounds and sunrises and perfumes, an armory of lethal weapons, ice and a concourse of mythological deities were his starting-point. Then the seas and heavens were dredged of phenomena to be mentioned with disparagement, in comparison with one or another feature of Duke Jurgen's Phyllida. Zoology and history, and generally the remembered contents of his pawnshop, were overhauled and made to furnish targets for depreciation: whereas in dealing with the famous ladies loved by earlier poets, Duke Jurgen was positively insulting, allowing hardly a rag of merit. Still, he was careful to be just: and he allowed that these poor creatures might figure advantageously enough in eyes which had never beheld his Phyllida. And to all this information the lady whom he hymned attended willingly.

"She is a princess," reflected Jurgen. "She is quite beautiful. She is young, and whatever her father's opinion, she is reasonably intelligent, as women go. Nobody could ask more. Why, then, am I not out of my head about her? Already she permits a kiss or two when nobody is around, and presently she will permit more. And she thinks I am quite the cleverest person living. Come, Jurgen, man! is there no heart in this spry young body you have regained? Come, let us have a little honest rapture and excitement over this promising situation!"

But somehow Jurgen could not manage it. He was interested in what, he knew, was going to happen. Yes, undoubtedly he looked forward to more intimate converse with this beautiful young princess, but it was rather as one anticipates partaking of a favorite dessert. Jurgen felt that a liaison arranged for in this spirit was neither one thing or the other.

"If only I could feel like a cold-blooded villain, now, I would at worst be classifiable. But I intend the girl no harm, I am honestly fond of her. I shall talk my best, broaden her ideas, and give her, I flatter myself, considerable pleasure: vulgar prejudices apart, I shall leave her no whit the worse. Why, the dear little thing, not for the ransom of seven emperors would I do her any hurt! And in these matters discretion is everything, simply everything. No, quite decidedly, I am not a cold-blooded villain; and I shall deal fairly with the Princess."

Thus Jurgen was disappointed by his own emotions, as he turned them from side to side, and prodded them, and shifted to a fresh viewpoint, only to find it no more favorable than the one relinquished: but he veiled the inadequacy of his emotions with very moving fervors. The tale does not record his conversations with Guenevere: for Jurgen now discoursed plain idiocy, as one purveys sweetmeats to a child in fond astonishment at the pet's appetite. And leisurely Jurgen advanced: there was no hurry, with weeks wherein to accomplish everything: meanwhile this routine work had a familiar pleasantness.

For the amateur co-ordinates matters, knowing that one thing axiomatically leads to another. There is no harm at all in respectful allusions to a love that comprehends its hopelessness: it was merely a fact which Jurgen mentioned, and was about to pass on; only Guenevere, in modesty, was forced to disparage her own attractions, as an inadequate cause for so much misery. Common courtesy demanded that Jurgen enter upon a rebuttal. To emphasize one point in this, the orator was forced to take the hand of his audience: but strangers did that every day, with nobody objecting; moreover, the hand was here, not so much seized as displayed by its detainer, as evidence of what he contended. How else was he to prove the Princess of Glathion had the loveliest hand in the world? It was not a matter he could request Guenevere to accept on hearsay: and Jurgen wanted to deal fairly with her.

Well, but before relinquishing the loveliest hand in the world a connoisseur will naturally kiss each fingertip: this is merely a tribute to perfection, and has no personal application. Besides, a kiss, wherever deposited, as Jurgen pointed out, is, when you think of it, but a ceremonial, of no intrinsic wrongfulness. The girl demurring against this apothegm—as custom again exacted,—was, still in common fairness, convinced of her error. So now, says Jurgen presently, you see for yourself. Is anything changed between us? Do we not sit here, just as we were before? Why, to be sure! a kiss is now attestedly a quite innocuous performance, with nothing very fearful about it one way or the other. It even has its pleasant side. Thus there is no need to make a pother over kisses or over an arm about you, when it is more comfortable sitting so: how can one reasonably deny to a sincere friend what is accorded to a cousin or an old cloak? It would be nonsense, as Jurgen demonstrated with a very apt citation from Napsacus.

Then, sitting so, in the heat of conversation a speaker naturally gesticulates: and a deal of his eloquence is dependent upon his hands. When anyone is talking it is discourteous to interrupt, whereas to lay hold of a gentleman's hand outright, as Jurgen parenthesized, is a little forward. No, he really did not think it would be quite proper for Guenevere to hold his hand. Let us preserve decorum, even in trifles.

"Ah, but you know that you are doing wrong!"

"I doing wrong! I, who am simply sitting here and talking my poor best in an effort to entertain you! Come now, Princess, but tell me what you mean!"

"You should know very well what I mean."

"But I protest to you I have not the least notion. How can I possibly know what you mean when you refuse to tell me what you mean?"

And since the Princess declined to put into words just what she meant, things stayed as they were, for the while.

Thus did Jurgen co-ordinate matters, knowing that one thing axiomatically leads to another. And in short, affairs sped very much as Jurgen had anticipated.

Now, by ordinary, Jurgen talked with Guenevere in dimly lighted places. He preferred this, because then he was not bothered by that unaccountable shadow whose presence in sunlight put him out. Nobody ever seemed to notice this preposterous shadow; it was patent, indeed, that nobody could see it save Jurgen: none the less, the thing worried him. So even from the first he remembered Guenevere as a soft voice and a delectable perfume in twilight, as a beauty not clearly visioned.

And Gogyrvan's people worried him. The hook-nosed tall old King had been by Jurgen dismissed from thought, as an enigma not important enough to be worth the trouble of solving. Gogyrvan at once seemed to be schooling himself to patience under some private annoyance and to be revolving in his mind some private jest; he was queer, and probably abominable: but to grant the old rascal his due, he was not meddlesome.

The people about Gogyrvan, though, were perplexing. These men who considered that all you possessed was loaned you to devote to the service of your God, your King and every woman who crossed your path, could hardly be behaving rationally. To talk of serving God sounded as sonorously and as inspiritingly as a drum: yes, and a drum had nothing but air in it. The priests said so-and-so: but did anybody believe the gallant Bishop of Merion, for example, was always to be depended upon?

"I would like the opinion of Prince Evrawc's wife as to that," said Jurgen, with a grin. For it was well-known that all affairs between this Dame Alundyne and the Bishop were so discreetly managed as to afford no reason for any scandal whatever.

As for serving the King, there in plain view was Gogyrvan Gawr, for anyone who so elected, to regard and grow enthusiastic over: Gogyrvan might be shrewd enough, but to Jurgen he suggested very little of the Lord's anointed. To the contrary, he reminded you of Jurgen's brother-in-law, the grocer, without being graced by the tradesman's friendly interest in customers. Gogyrvan Gawr was a person whom Jurgen simply could not imagine any intelligent Deity selecting as steward. And finally, when it came to serving women, what sort of service did women most cordially appreciate? Jurgen had his answer pat enough, but it was an answer not suitable for utterance in a mixed company.

"No one of my honest opinions, in fact, is adapted to further my popularity in Glathion, because I am a monstrous clever fellow who does justice to things as they are. Therefore I must remember always, in justice to myself, that I very probably hold traffic with madmen. Yet Rome was a fine town, and it was geese who saved it. These people may be right; and certainly I cannot go so far as to say they are wrong: but still, at the same time—! Yes, that is how I feel about it."

Thus did Jurgen abide at the chivalrous court of Glathion, and conform to all its customs. In the matter of love-songs nobody protested more movingly that the lady whom he loved (quite hopelessly, of course), embodied all divine perfections: and when it came to knightly service, the possession of Caliburn made the despatching of thieves and giants and dragons seem hardly sportsmanlike. Still, Jurgen fought a little, now and then, in order to conform to the customs of Glathion: and the Duke of Logreus was widely praised as a very promising young knight.

And all the while he fretted because he could just dimly perceive that ideal which was served in Glathion, and the beauty of this ideal, but could not possibly believe in it. Here was, again, a loveliness perceived in twilight, a beauty not clearly visioned.

"Yet am not I a monstrous clever fellow," he would console himself, "to take them all in so completely? It is a joke to which, I think, I do full justice."

So Jurgen abode among these persons to whom life was a high-hearted journeying homeward. God the Father awaited you there, ready to punish at need, but eager to forgive, after the manner of all fathers: that one became a little soiled in traveling, and sometimes blundered into the wrong lane, was a matter which fathers understood: meanwhile here was an ever-present reminder of His perfection incarnated in woman, the finest and the noblest of His creations. Thus was every woman a symbol to be honored magnanimously and reverently. So said they all.

"Why, but to be sure!" assented Jurgen. And in support of his position he very edifyingly quoted Ophelion, and Fabianus Papirius, and Sextius Niger to boot.



15.

Of compromises in Glathion

The tale records that it was not a great while before, in simple justice to Guenevere, Duke Jurgen had afforded her the advantage of frank conversation in actual privacy. For conventions have to be regarded, of course. Thus the time of a princess is not her own, and at any hour of day all sorts of people are apt to request an audience just when some most improving conversation is progressing famously: but the Hall of Judgment stood vacant and unguarded at night.

"But I would never consider doing such a thing," said Guenevere: "and whatever must you think of me, to make such a proposal!"

"That too, my dearest, is a matter which I can only explain in private."

"And if I were to report your insolence to my father—"

"You would annoy him exceedingly: and from such griefs it is our duty to shield the aged."

"And besides, I am afraid."

"Oh, my dearest," says Jurgen, and his voice quavered, because his love and his sorrow seemed very great to him: "but, oh, my dearest, can it be that you have not faith in me! For with all my body and soul I love you, as I have loved you ever since I first raised your face between my hands, and understood that I had never before known beauty. Indeed, I love you as, I think, no man has ever loved any woman that lived in the long time that is gone, for my love is worship, and no less. The touch of your hand sets me to trembling, dear; and the look of your gray eyes makes me forget there is anything of pain or grief or evil anywhere: for you are the loveliest thing God ever made, with joy in the new skill that had come to His fingers. And you have not faith in me!"

Then the Princess gave a little sobbing laugh of content and repentance, and she clasped the hand of her grief-stricken lover. "Forgive me, Jurgen, for I cannot bear to see you so unhappy!"

"Ah, and what is my grief to you!" he asks of her, bitterly.

"Much, oh, very much, my dear!" she whispered.

So in the upshot Jurgen was never to forget that moment wherein he waited behind the door, and through the crack between the half-open door and the door-frame saw Guenevere approach irresolutely, a wavering white blur in the dark corridor. She came to talk with him where they would not be bothered with interruptions: but she came delightfully perfumed, in her night-shift, and in nothing else. Jurgen wondered at the way of these women even as his arms went about her in the gloom. He remembered always the feel of that warm and slender and yielding body, naked under the thin fabric of the shift, as his arms first went about her: of all their moments together that last breathless minute before either of them had spoken stayed in his memory as the most perfect.

And yet what followed was pleasant enough, for now it was to the wide and softly cushioned throne of a king, no less, that Guenevere and Jurgen resorted, so as to talk where they would not be bothered with interruptions. The throne of Gogyrvan was perfectly dark, under its canopy, in the unlighted hall, and in the dark nobody can see what happens.

Thereafter these two contrived to talk together nightly upon the throne of Glathion: but what remained in Jurgen's memory was that last moment behind the door, and the six tall windows upon the east side of the hall, those windows which were of commingled blue and silver, but were all an opulent glitter, throughout that time in the night when the moon was clear of the tree-tops and had not yet risen high enough to be shut off by the eaves. For that was all which Jurgen really saw in the Hall of Judgment. There would be a brief period wherein upon the floor beneath each window would show a narrow quadrangle of moonlight: but the windows were set in a wall so deep that this soon passed. On the west side were six windows also, but about these was a porch; so no light ever came from the west.

Thus in the dark they would laugh and talk with lowered voices. Jurgen came to these encounters well primed with wine, and in consequence, as he quite comprehended, talked like an angel, without confining himself exclusively to celestial topics. He was often delighted by his own brilliance, and it seemed to him a pity there was no one handy to take it down: so much of his talking was necessarily just a little over the head of any girl, however beautiful and adorable.

And Guenevere, he found, talked infinitely better at night. It was not altogether the wine which made him think that, either: the girl displayed a side she veiled in the day time. A girl, far less a princess, is not supposed to know more than agrees with a man's notion of maidenly ignorance, she contended.

"Nobody ever told me anything about so many interesting matters. Why, I remember—" And Guenevere narrated a quaintly pathetic little story, here irrelevant, of what had befallen her some three or four years earlier. "My mother was living then: but she had never said a word about such things, and frightened as I was, I did not go to her."

Jurgen asked questions.

"Why, yes. There was nothing else to do. I cannot talk freely with my maids and ladies even now. I cannot question them, that is: of course I can listen as they talk among themselves. For me to do more would be unbecoming in a princess. And I wonder quietly about so many things!" She educed instances. "After that I used to notice the animals and the poultry. So I worked out problems for myself, after a fashion. But nobody ever told me anything directly."

"Yet I dare say that Thragnar—well, the Troll King, being very wise, must have made zoology much clearer."

"Thragnar was a skilled enchanter," says a demure voice in the dark; "and through the potency of his abominable arts, I can remember nothing whatever about Thragnar."

Jurgen laughed, ruefully. Still, he was tolerably sure about Thragnar now.

So they talked: and Jurgen marvelled, as millions of men had done aforetime, and have done since, at the girl's eagerness, now that barriers were down, to discuss in considerable detail all such matters as etiquette had previously compelled them to ignore. About her ladies in waiting, for example, she afforded him some very curious data: and concerning men in general she asked innumerable questions that Jurgen found delicious.

Such innocence combined—upon the whole—with a certain moral obtuseness, seemed inconceivable. For to Jurgen it now appeared that Guenevere was behaving with not quite the decorum which might fairly be expected of a princess. Contrition, at least, one might have looked for, over this hole and corner business: whereas it worried him to note that Guenevere was coming to accept affairs almost as a matter of course. Certainly she did not seem to think at all of any wickedness anywhere: the utmost she suggested was the necessity of being very careful. And while she never contradicted him in these private conversations, and submitted in everything to his judgment, her motive now appeared to be hardly more than a wish to please him. It was almost as though she were humoring him in his foolishness. And all this within six weeks! reflected Jurgen: and he nibbled his finger-nails, with a mental side-glance toward the opinions of King Gogyrvan Gawr.

But in daylight the Princess remained unchanged. In daylight Jurgen adored her, but with no feeling of intimacy. Very rarely did occasion serve for them to be actually alone in the day time. Once or twice, though, he kissed her in open sunlight: and then her eyes were melting but wary, and the whole affair was rather flat. She did not repulse him: but she stayed a princess, appreciative of her station, and seemed not at all the invisible person who talked with him at night in the Hall of Judgment.

Presently, by common consent, they began to avoid each other by daylight. Indeed, the time of the Princess was now pre-occupied: for now had come into Glathion a ship with saffron colored sails, and having for its figure-head a dragon that was painted with thirty colors. Such was the ship which brought Messire Merlin Ambrosius and Dame Anaitis, the Lady of the Lake, with a great retinue, to fetch young Guenevere to London, where she was to be married to King Arthur.

First there was a week of feasting and tourneys and high mirth of every kind. Now the trumpets blared, and upon a scaffolding that was gay with pennons and smart tapestries King Gogyrvan sat nodding and blinking in his brightest raiment, to judge who did the best: and into the field came joyously a press of dukes and earls and barons and many famous knights, to contend for honor and a trumpery chaplet of pearls.

Jurgen shrugged, and honored custom. The Duke of Logreus acquitted himself with credit in the opening tournament, unhorsing Sir Dodinas le Sauvage, Earl Roth of Meliot, Sir Epinogris, and Sir Hector de Maris: then Earl Damas of Listenise smote like a whirlwind, and Jurgen slid contentedly down the tail of his fine horse. His part in the tournament was ended, and he was heartily glad of it. He preferred to contemplate rather than share in such festivities: and he now followed his bent with a most exquisite misery, because he considered that never had any other poet occupied a situation more picturesque.

By day he was the Duke of Logreus, which in itself was a notable advance upon pawnbroking: after nightfall he discounted the peculiar privileges of a king. It was the secrecy, the deluding of everybody, which he especially enjoyed: and in the thought of what a monstrous clever fellow was Jurgen, he almost lost sight of the fact that he was miserable over the impending marriage of the lady he loved.

Once or twice he caught the tail-end of a glance from Gogyrvan's bright old eye. Jurgen by this time abhorred Gogyrvan, as a person of abominably unjust dealings.

"To take no better care of his own daughter," Jurgen considered, "is infamous. The man is neglecting his duties as a father, and to do that is not fair."



16.

Divers Imbroglios of King Smoit

Now it befell that for three nights in succession the Princess Guenevere was unable to converse with Jurgen in the Hall of Judgment. So upon one of these disengaged evenings Duke Jurgen held a carouse with Aribert and Urien, two of Gogyrvan's barons, who had just returned from Pengwaed-Gir, and had queer tales to narrate of the Trooping Fairies who garrison that place.

All three were seasoned topers, so Jurgen went to bed prepared for anything. Later he sat up in bed, and found it was much as he had suspected. The room was haunted, and at the foot of his couch were two ghosts: one an impudent-looking leering phantom, in a suit of old-fashioned armor, and the other a beautiful pale lady, in the customary flowing white draperies.

"Good-morning to you both," says Jurgen, "and sorry am I that I cannot truthfully observe I am glad to see you. Though you are welcome enough if you can manage to haunt the room quietly." Then, seeing that both phantoms looked puzzled, Jurgen proceeded to explain. "Last year, when I was traveling upon business in Westphalia, it was my grief to spend a night in the haunted castle of Neuedesberg, for I could not get any sleep at all in that place. There was a ghost in charge who persisted in rattling very large iron chains and in groaning dismally throughout the night. Then toward morning he took the form of a monstrous cat, and climbed upon the foot of my bed: and there he squatted yowling until daybreak. And as I am ignorant of German, I was not able to convey to him any idea of my disapproval of his conduct. Now I trust that as compatriots, or as I might say with more exactness, as former compatriots, you will appreciate that such behavior is out of all reason."

"Messire," says the male ghost, and he oozed to his full height, "you are guilty of impertinence in harboring such a suspicion. I can only hope it proceeds from ignorance."

"For I am sure," put in the lady, "that I always disliked cats, and we never had them about the castle."

"And you must pardon my frankness, messire," continued the male ghost, "but you cannot have moved widely in noble company if you are indeed unable to distinguish between members of the feline species and of the reigning family of Glathion."

"Well, I have seen dowager queens who justified some such confusion," observed Jurgen. "Still, I entreat the forgiveness of both of you, for I had no idea that I was addressing royalty."

"I was King Smoit," explained the male phantom, "and this was my ninth wife, Queen Sylvia Tereu."

Jurgen bowed as gracefully, he flattered himself, as was possible in his circumstances. It is not easy to bow gracefully while sitting erect in bed.

"Often and over again have I heard of you, King Smoit," says Jurgen. "You were the grandfather of Gogyrvan Gawr, and you murdered your ninth wife, and your eighth wife, and your fifth wife, and your third wife too: and you went under the title of the Black King, for you were reputed the wickedest monarch that ever reigned in Glathion and the Red Islands."

It seemed to Jurgen that King Smoit evinced embarrassment, but it is hard to be quite certain when a ghost is blushing. "Perhaps I was spoken of in some such terms," says Smoit, "for the neighbors were censorious gossips, and I was not lucky in my marriages. And I regret, I bitterly regret, to confess that, in a moment of extreme yet not quite unprovoked excitement, I assassinated the lady whom you now behold."

"And I am sure, through no fault of mine," says Sylvia Tereu.

"Certainly, my dear, you resisted with all your might. I only wish that you had been a larger and a brawnier woman. But you, messire, can now perceive, I suppose, the folly of expecting a high King of Glathion, and the queen that he took delight in, to sit upon your bed and howl?"

So then, upon reflection, Jurgen admitted he had never had that experience; nor, he handsomely added, could he recall any similar incident among his friends.

"The notion is certainly preposterous," went on King Smoit, and very grimly he smiled. "We are drawn hither by quite other intentions. In fact, we wish to ask of you, as a member of the family, your assistance in a delicate affair."

"I would be delighted," Jurgen stated, "to aid you in any possible way. But why do you call me a member of the family?"

"Now, to deal frankly," says Smoit, with a grin, "I am not claiming any alliance with the Duke of Logreus—"

"Sometimes," says Jurgen, "one prefers to travel incognito. As a king, you ought to understand that."

—"My interest is rather in the grandson of Steinvor. Now you will remember your grandmother Steinvor as, I do not doubt, a charming old lady. But I remember Steinvor, the wife of Ludwig, as one of the loveliest girls that a king's eyes ever lighted on."

"Oh, sir," says Jurgen, horrified, "and what is this you are telling me!"

"Merely that I had always an affectionate nature," replied King Smoit, "and that I was a fine upstanding young king in those days. And one of the results of my being these things was your father, whom men called Coth the son of Ludwig. But I can assure you Ludwig had done nothing to deserve it."

"Well, well!" said Jurgen: "all this is very scandalous: and very upsetting, too, it is to have a brand-new grandfather foisted upon you at this hour of the morning. Still, it happened a great while ago: and if Ludwig did not fret over it, I see no reason why I should do so. And besides, King Smoit, it may be that you are not telling me the truth."

"If you doubt my confession, messire my grandson, you have only to look into the next mirror. It is precisely on this account that we have ventured to dispel your slumbers. For to me you bear a striking resemblance. You have the family face."

Now Jurgen considered the lineaments of King Smoit of Glathion. "Really," said Jurgen, "of course it is very flattering to be told that your appearance is regal. I do not at all know what to say in reply to the implied compliment, without seeming uncivil. I would never for a moment question that you were much admired in your day, sir, and no doubt very justly so. None the less—well, my nose, now, from such glimpses of it as mirrors have hitherto afforded, does not appear to be a snub-nose."

"Ah, but appearances are proverbially deceitful," observed King Smoit.

"And about the left hand corner," protested Queen Sylvia Tereu, "I detect a distinct resemblance."

"Now I may seem unduly obtuse," said Jurgen, "for I am a little obtuse. It is a habit with me, a very bad habit formed in early infancy, and I have never been able to break myself of it. And so I have not any notion at what you two are aiming."

Replied the ghost of King Smoit: "I will explain. Just sixty-three years ago to-night I murdered my ninth wife in circumstances of peculiar brutality, as you with rather questionable taste have mentioned."

Then Jurgen was somewhat abashed, and felt that it did not become him, who had so recently cut off the head of his own wife, to assume the airs of a precisian. "Of course," says Jurgen, more broad-mindedly, "these little family differences are always apt to occur in married life."

"So be it! Though, by the so-and-sos of Ursula's eleven thousand traveling companions, there was a time wherein I would not have brooked such criticism. Ah, well, that time is overpast, and I am a bloodless thing that the wind sweeps at the wind's will through lands in which but yesterday King Smoit was dreaded. So I let that which has been be."

"Well, that seems reasonable," said Jurgen, "and to be a trifle rhetorical is the privilege of grandfathers. Therefore I entreat you, sir, to continue."

"Two years afterward I followed the Emperor Locrine in his expedition against the Suevetii, an evil and luxurious people who worship Gozarin peculiarly, by means of little boats. I must tell you, grandson, that was a goodly raid, conducted by a band of tidy fighters in a land of wealth and of fine women. But alack, as the saying is, in our return from Osnach my loved general Locrine was captured by that arch-fiend Duke Corineus of Cornwall: and I, among many others who had followed the Emperor, paid for our merry larcenies and throat-cuttings a very bitter price. Corineus was not at all broadminded, not what you would call a man of the world. So it was in a noisome dungeon that I was incarcerated,—I, Smoit of Glathion, who conquered Enisgarth and Sargyll in open battle and fearlessly married the heiress of Camwy! But I spare you the unpleasant details. It suffices to say that I was dissatisfied with my quarters. Yet fain to leave them as I became, there was but one way. It involved the slaying of my gaoler, a step which was, I confess, to me distasteful. I was getting on in life, and had grown tired of killing people. Yet, to mature deliberation, the life of a graceless varlet, void of all gentleness and with no bowels of compassion, and deaf to suggestions of bribery, appeared of no overwhelming importance."

"I can readily imagine, grandfather, that you were not deeply interested in either the nature or the anatomy of your gaoler. So you did what was unavoidable."

"Yes, I treacherously slew him, and escaped in an impenetrable disguise to Glathion, where not long afterward I died. My dying just then was most annoying, for I was on the point of being married, and she was a remarkably attractive girl,—King Tyrnog's daughter, from Craintnor way. She would have been my thirteenth wife. And not a week before the ceremony I tripped and fell down my own castle steps, and broke my neck. It was a humiliating end for one who had been a warrior of considerable repute. Upon my word, it made me think there might be something, after all, in those old superstitions about thirteen being an unlucky number. But what was I saying?—oh, yes! It is also unlucky to be careless about one's murders. You will readily understand that for one or two such affairs I am condemned yearly to haunt the scene of my crime on its anniversary: such an arrangement is fair enough, and I make no complaint, though of course it does rather break into the evening. But it happened that I treacherously slew my gaoler with a large cobble-stone on the fifteenth of June. Now the unfortunate part, the really awkward feature, was that this was to an hour the anniversary of the death of my ninth wife."

"And you murdering insignificant strangers on such a day!" said Queen Sylvia. "You climbing out of jail windows figged out as a lady abbess, on an anniversary you ought to have kept on your knees in unavailing repentance! But you were a hard man, Smoit, and it was little loving courtesy you showed your wife at a time when she might reasonably look to be remembered, and that is a fact."

"My dear, I admit it was heedless of me. I could not possibly say more. At any rate, grandson, I discovered after my decease that such heedlessness entailed my haunting on every fifteenth of June at three in the morning two separate places."

"Well, but that was justice," says Jurgen.

"It may have been justice," Smoit admitted: "but my point is that it happened to be impossible. However, I was aided by my great-great-grandfather Penpingon Vreichvras ap Mylwald Glasanief. He too had the family face; and in every way resembled me so closely that he impersonated me to everyone's entire satisfaction; and with my wife's assistance re-enacted my disastrous crime upon the scene of its occurrence, June after June."

"Indeed," said Queen Sylvia, "he handled his sword infinitely better than you, my dear. It was a thrilling pleasure to be murdered by Penpingon Vreichvras ap Mylwald Glasanief, and I shall always regret him."

"For you must understand, grandson, that the term of King Penpingon Vreichvras ap Mylwald Glasanief's stay in Purgatory has now run out, and he has recently gone to Heaven. That was pleasant for him, I dare say, so I do not complain. Still, it leaves me with no one to take my place. Angels, as you will readily understand, are not permitted to perpetrate murders, even in the way of kindness. It might be thought to establish a dangerous precedent."

"All this," said Jurgen, "seems regrettable, but not strikingly explicit. I have a heart and a half to serve you, sir, with not seven-eighths of a notion as to what you want of me. Come, put a name to it!"

"You have, as I have said, the family face. You are, in fact, the living counterpart of Smoit of Glathion. So I beseech you, messire my grandson, for this one night to impersonate my ghost, and with the assistance of Queen Sylvia Tereu to see that at three o'clock the White Turret is haunted to everyone's satisfaction. Otherwise," said Smoit, gloomily, "the consequences will be deplorable."

"But I have had no experience at haunting," Jurgen confessed. "It is a pursuit in which I do not pretend to competence: and I do not even know just how one goes about it."

"That matter is simple, although mysterious preliminaries will be, of course, necessitated, in order to convert a living person into a ghost—"

"The usual preliminaries, sir, are out of the question: and I must positively decline to be stabbed or poisoned or anything of that kind, even to humor my grandfather."

Both Smoit and Sylvia protested that any such radical step would be superfluous, since Jurgen's ghostship was to be transient. In fact, all Jurgen would have to do would be to drain the embossed goblet which Sylvia Tereu held out to him, with Druidical invocations.

And for a moment Jurgen hesitated. The whole business seemed rather improbable. Still, the ties of kin are strong, and it is not often one gets the chance to aid, however slightly, one's long-dead grandfather: besides, the potion smelt very invitingly.

"Well," says Jurgen, "I am willing to taste any drink once." Then Jurgen drank.

The flavor was excellent. Yet the drink seemed not to affect Jurgen, at first. Then he began to feel a trifle light-headed. Next he looked downward, and was surprised to notice there was nobody in his bed. Closer investigation revealed the shadowy outline of a human figure, through which the bedclothing had collapsed. This, he decided, was all that was left of Jurgen. And it gave him a queer sensation. Jurgen jumped like a startled horse, and so violently that he flew out of bed, and found himself floating imponderably about the room.

Now Jurgen recognized the feeling perfectly. He had often had it in his sleep, in dreams wherein he would bend his legs at the knees so that his feet came up behind him, and he would pass through the air without any effort. Then it seemed ridiculously simple, and he would wonder why he never thought of it before. And then he would reflect: "This is an excellent way of getting around. I will come to breakfast this way in the morning, and show Lisa how simple it is. How it will astonish her, to be sure, and how clever she will think me!" And then Jurgen would wake up, and find that somehow he had forgotten the trick of it.

But just now this manner of locomotion was undeniably easy. So Jurgen floated around his bed once or twice, then to the ceiling, for practice. Through inexperience, he miscalculated the necessary force, and popped through into the room above, where he found himself hovering immediately over the Bishop of Merion. His eminence was not alone, but as both occupants of the apartment were asleep, Jurgen witnessed nothing unepiscopal. Now Jurgen rejoined his grandfather, and girded on charmed Caliburn, and demanded what must next be done.

"The assassination will take place in the White Turret, as usual. Queen Sylvia will instruct you in the details. You can invent most of the affair, however, as the Lady of the Lake, who occupies this room to-night, is very probably unacquainted with our terrible history."

Then King Smoit observed that it was high time he kept his appointment in Cornwall, and he melted into air, with an easy confidence that bespoke long practise: and Jurgen followed Queen Sylvia Tereu.



17.

About a Cock That Crowed Too Soon

Next the tale tells of how Jurgen and the ghost of Queen Sylvia Tereu came into the White Turret. The Lady of the Lake was in bed: she slept unaccompanied, as Jurgen noted with approval, for he wished to intrude upon no more tete-a-tetes. And Dame Anaitis did not at first awake.

Now this was a gloomy and high-paneled apartment, with exactly the traditional amount of moonlight streaming through two windows. Any ghost, even an apprentice, could have acquitted himself with credit in such surroundings, and Jurgen thought he did extremely well. He was atavistically brutal, and to improvise the accompanying dialogue he did not find difficult. So everything went smoothly, and with such spirit that Anaitis was presently wakened by Queen Sylvia's very moving wails for mercy, and sat erect in bed, as though a little startled. Then the Lady of the Lake leaned back among the pillows, and witnessed the remainder of the terrible scene with remarkable self-possession.

So it was that the tragedy swelled to its appalling climax, and subsided handsomely. With the aid of Caliburn, Jurgen had murdered his temporary wife. He had dragged her insensate body across the floor, by the hair of her head, and had carefully remembered first to put her comb in his pocket, as Queen Sylvia had requested, so that it would not be lost. He had given vent to several fiendish "Ha-ha's" and all the old high imprecations he remembered: and in short, everything had gone splendidly when he left the White Turret with a sense of self-approval and Queen Sylvia Tereu.

The two of them paused in the winding stairway; and in the darkness, after he had restored her comb, the Queen was telling Jurgen how sorry she was to part with him.

"For it is back to the cold grave I must be going now, Messire Jurgen, and to the tall flames of Purgatory: and it may be that I shall not ever see you any more."

"I shall regret the circumstance, madame," says Jurgen, "for you are the loveliest person I have ever seen."

The Queen was pleased. "That is a delightfully boyish speech, and one can see it comes from the heart. I only wish that I could meet with such unsophisticated persons in my present abode. Instead, I am herded with battered sinners who have no heart, who are not frank and outspoken about anything, and I detest their affectations."

"Ah, then you are not happy with your husband, Sylvia? I suspected as much."

"I see very little of Smoit. It is true he has eight other wives all resident in the same flame, and cannot well show any partiality. Two of his Queens, though, went straight to Heaven: and his eighth wife, Gudrun, we are compelled to fear, must have been an unrepentant sinner, for she has never reached Purgatory. But I always distrusted Gudrun, myself: otherwise I would never have suggested to Smoit that he have her strangled in order to make me his queen. You see, I thought it a fine thing to be a queen, in those days, Jurgen, when I was an artless slip of a girl. And Smoit was all honey and perfume and velvet, in those days, Jurgen, and little did I suspect the cruel fate that was to befall me."

"Indeed, it is a sad thing, Sylvia, to be murdered by the hand which, so to speak, is sworn to keep an eye on your welfare, and which rightfully should serve you on its knees."

"It was not that I minded. Smoit killed me in a fit of jealousy, and jealousy is in its blundering way a compliment. No, a worse thing than that befell me, Jurgen, and embittered all my life in the flesh." And Sylvia began to weep.

"And what was that thing, Sylvia?"

Queen Sylvia whispered the terrible truth. "My husband did not understand me."

"Now, by Heaven," says Jurgen, "when a woman tells me that, even though the woman be dead, I know what it is she expects of me."

So Jurgen put his arm about the ghost of Queen Sylvia Tereu, and comforted her. Then, finding her quite willing to be comforted, Jurgen sat for a while upon the dark steps, with one arm still about Queen Sylvia. The effect of the potion had evidently worn off, because Jurgen found himself to be composed no longer of cool imponderable vapor, but of the warmest and hardest sort of flesh everywhere. But probably the effect of the wine which Jurgen had drunk earlier in the evening had not worn off: for now Jurgen began to talk wildishly in the dark, about the necessity of his, in some way, avenging the injury inflicted upon his nominal grandfather, Ludwig, and Jurgen drew his sword, charmed Caliburn.

"For, as you perceive," said Jurgen, "I carry such weapons as are sufficient for all ordinary encounters. And am I not to use them, to requite King Smoit for the injustice he did poor Ludwig? Why, certainly I must. It is my duty."

"Ah, but Smoit by this is back in Purgatory," Queen Sylvia protested, "And to draw your sword against a woman is cowardly."

"The avenging sword of Jurgen, my charming Sylvia, is the terror of envious men, but it is the comfort of all pretty women."

"It is undoubtedly a very large sword," said she: "oh, a magnificent sword, as I can perceive even in the dark. But Smoit, I repeat, is not here to measure weapons with you."

"Now your arguments irritate me, whereas an honest woman would see to it that all the legacies of her dead husband were duly satisfied—"

"Oh, oh! and what do you mean—?"

"Well, but certainly a grandson is—at one remove, I grant you,—a sort of legacy."

"There is something in what you advance—"

"There is a great deal in what I advance, I can assure you. It is the most natural and most penetrating kind of logic; and I wish merely to discharge a duty—"

"But you upset me, with that big sword of yours, you make me nervous, and I cannot argue so long as you are flourishing it about. Come now, put up your sword! Oh, what is anybody to do with you! Here is the sheath for your sword," says she.