Formalities were soon over, and King Kul ordered that the two children be brought to greet their friends. In the meantime, he stood, his hands lightly clasped behind him, talking to Vanderdecken, who had been presented to him with due ceremony and whose sterling qualities he could both discern and appreciate. Though but a merchant adventurer Vanderdecken was of good family; he had as we know some knowledge of the classics, he spoke easily and well, there was no hesitation or mauvaise honte about the man; though his dress was rough and perhaps ill-fitted to the brilliant scene, he bore himself with proper pride. As the late Lord Buscoe said to one who expostulated with him for coming to dinner in plus-fours, you cannot disguise a gentleman.
Sylvia and Joe, in their fine and fancy garb, were brought into the hall by the Lady Ermyntrude and affectionately greeted and kissed by King Merse. They instantly told him that he must demand the release of Gorbo, for he had been put in a dungeon.
“By the way, your Majesty,” said King Merse, turning to his brother monarch, “what about my subject, Gorbo? I hear he is in trouble.”
“You shall see him,” replied the other with a touch of sternness (with two kings conversing the reader will have sometimes to judge their identity by the matter of their speech). “Ho there! bring hither that fellow!”
Metallic sounds caused all to look towards the council chamber where Gorbo had been left with his guards. He came forward, carrying his chain with difficulty and occasionally stumbling over it. He looked at his liege lord with a sheepish smile.
“Hail, Gorbo,” said King Merse, amid a deep silence.
“May your shadow ever be a wide one,” murmured Gorbo.
“You seem to have got tangled up with some iron, Gorbo. What is it this time?”
Gorbo gave no reply, but only toyed with a link of his chain.
“Let me ask you, our cousin,” said King Kul impressively. “Suppose an utter stranger were to come into your hall unannounced and hand you one of the very best with a stout sapling while you were reaching across your own supper-table, what would you say?”
King Merse thought diligently for a moment; then he shook his head. “I give it up,” he said. “But,” he added half-unconsciously touching the hilt of his sword, “I might be able to tell you what I would do, if that is of any use to you.”
“Exactly!” said King Kul; “that is just my point. This subject of yours did so behave to us. And you can scarcely credit what a stinger he gave us. I ask you.”
“Well, Gorbo,” said King Merse after a serious pause, “to put it in the very mildest way, you are not improving. Can you make anything of this strange case?” he asked of Vanderdecken.
Vanderdecken did not reply in words; he merely grasped his beard and shook his head slowly from side to side as one who is utterly defeated.
“I suppose,” went on King Merse, “it were too much to expect that the fellow had some dim shadow of a reason, at the back of what for want of a better word we must call his brain, for this outrage?”
“Oh, we have found reason enough!” cried King Kul, with a slight tendency to rave. “He did it, he says, to save these little children from execution at our hands! These—these whom we were at the moment stuffing with muffins! Oh----” here his sense of the bitter indignity overcame him again and he could only articulate words which I prefer to represent by dashes.
“This is a blow to me,” said King Merse, sadly. “I had hoped that when I found Gorbo I would also find that his mind had been broadened by foreign travel; it is said to have that effect. But what hope now?”
“It’s all very well,” said Gorbo sullenly, “but if you’d heard what Golithos said about the King, and what Mother Meldrum said about him, perhaps you’d have made a little mistake too. And Baldry said----” here he stopped suddenly, for Baldry was his sworn friend and he felt that to go on would not be cricket.
“Baldry!” exclaimed King Merse. “Ah, now the matter is clearing. Tell me what that reprobate said about me.”
But Gorbo remained silent.
“Bring hither our one-time jester,” said the King to an officer. “I think, cousin, we may find some extra reason for this matter.”