Long Live the King by Guy Boothby (sites to read books for free TXT) 📖

seen it before. That you were not best pleased to be confronted with it, I gathered from your face, and, as I looked at it, I remembered certain things you had let slip in your delirium. No!" he cried, seeing that Max was about to speak, "let me finish before you begin. I have a young friend, I might even go so far as to say, a dear young friend, who came to me eighteen months ago, in rather an extraordinary fashion. He had been in an English cavalry regiment, he informed me; so, I reflected, had the Crown Prince of whom we have been speaking. He informed me in my own dining-room, by accident I will admit, that he had been a guest at Osborne; I believe the Crown Prince enjoyed a similar honour; the latter, so report says, has black hair and dark eyes, his height is about six feet one, and he is slimly built. If I wanted to carry the coincidence further, I might add that, when my friend, Max Mortimer, was ill, he spoke continually of a certain beautiful princess. 'Paul loves her and I will not stand in his way,' he cried. Now, strangely enough, the Crown Prince has an only brother whose name is Paul. I happen to know this, because the very next morning, while you were still lying at death's door, the newspapers announced the fact that Prince Paul of Pannonia had been betrothed to the Princess Ottilie, daughter of Prince Ferdinand of Lilienhoehe."

Whether Brockford intended his information to come as a surprise to Max I cannot say, but there is no doubt that the news of my engagement took the latter wholly aback. He clutched at the verandah rail, and for a moment seemed stunned by the intelligence. The only explanation I can furnish for his not having heard it before is, that while it was impossible for him to see any newspapers during his illness, he had not bothered to look up the back files afterwards, to see what had been going on in Europe during the time he was cut off from the world.

"That settles it," said Brockford to himself, as he watched him. "He is the Crown Prince, as I thought, and he left England in order that his brother might be in a position to marry the woman he loved. I thought such chivalry had vanished from the world."

A few moments later, when Max had recovered somewhat from the shock he had received, he turned to Brockford and held out his hand, which the other took.

"Forgive me," he said. "I was not quite myself a few moments ago. I am all right now, however. As you say, it is best that we should come to an understanding with each other. What is it you wish me to say or do?"

"Nothing," answered Brockford. "I have been reproaching myself for having said so much already. I am a meddlesome old fool, but I had not the least intention of hurting or offending you. I hope you will believe that. My only desire is to let you see plainly that you possess a friend in me, upon whom you can rely, happen what may."

"I am quite aware of that," returned Max. "You don't surely think I doubted it for a moment. You have proved yourself one of the best friends a man could possibly have, and I should be the meanest hound on earth if I did not remember that, and be grateful to you for it all the days of my life."

"Tut, tut! you must not talk like that," said Brockford. "I did no more for you than I should have done for anyone else. I helped you because I liked your face. But we are wandering away from the point. What I want to say to you is that, come what may, the Crown Prince's secret, if he has one, poor fellow, is quite safe with me. Not a hint concerning it shall pass my lips."

With that the kind-hearted old fellow shook Max heartily by the hand once more, and then, bidding him a hurried good-night, hastened into the house, and was seen no more.

Next morning when he and Mr. Brockford met at breakfast, they conducted themselves towards each other as if no such conversation as that I have described had taken place between them on the previous night. At the allotted hour they crossed the bay to the city and made their way to their respective places of business, parting at the same street corner, and with the usual commonplace farewell.

That week, on the other side of the globe, I received information that Max was alive, and that Rio de Janeiro was the name of his hiding-place.


CHAPTER X.


A few days later Max was walking along the Rua d'Ouvidor, when he heard his name called. Turning round, he found himself, much to his surprise, confronted by Moreas, the man who had accompanied him from England.

"This is well met, indeed," cried the latter, holding out his hand with great cordiality. "You are just the man, of all others, I wanted to see. I was only wondering this morning whether you were still in Brazil, and, if so, where I could find you. Your residence south of the Equator does not seem to have done much harm to your appearance."

Max replied that he thought, on the contrary, it had done him a large amount of good, and, having offered the country this justice, he was prepared to utter a few commonplaces, and then to pass on his way along the street. This, however, was not at all what Moreas desired or intended should happen. He explained at some length that he had only arrived in Rio that morning, and that he was going on to Buenos Ayres in the afternoon.

"In the interval you and I must have a chat," he said. "There is something I want to talk to you about. But that I have had a proper look at you, I had perhaps better not mention it. You seem to be prosperous. Had you been hard up, I was going to propose that you should join me in a little piece of business, which may prove to be worth nothing at all, or, on the other hand, may mean a gigantic fortune for both of us."

"You allow a good margin," said Max. "If I were allowed a preference, I should declare for the million. And pray what is this business?"

"Diamonds," answered Moreas quietly, as leaning across the table and clasping his hands together. "Diamonds such as you have never dreamed of. With the information I have received I tell you I am able to put my hand on the biggest diamond mine on the face of the habitable globe. How I obtained the information doesn't matter just now. I'll tell you about it another day. It is sufficient for the present that I am fully posted. Unfortunately, however, there are others, besides myself, who are acquainted with it. It is of those others that I am afraid. If the truth must be told, and you don't mind a simple pun, I might say it is a case of diamond cut diamond with us. I don't trust them, and I am not at all certain that they trust me. Now, situated as I am, what I want to do is to import another man into the concern, a man whose interests, though they must not be aware of it, will be identical with my own. Two of us would be a match for the whole pack of them. Particularly if I can get hold of a man who can use a pistol as you can. Taken all round, Mortimer, you're just the sort of fellow I want. You'd enjoy a piece of adventure of this kind. We should be away about four months, and I don't think you would be able to complain, when you returned, of having had a dull time of it. Now what have you to say?"

"It is impossible," said Max, though in his own mind he felt that he would have given anything to have been able to take a hand in it. "There was a time when I should have liked nothing better, but I have settled down to a staid business life now, and an affair such as you propose is quite out of the question."

"I am sorry for that," answered Moreas, his spirits visibly sinking as he heard the other's decision. "I had quite made up my mind that, when I told you about it, you would throw everything else to the dogs and go in for it with me. However, there is one good point about it. I have to go south to-day. I shall be back in Rio in about six weeks' time. Nobody knows how you may be situated then. If anything has happened, and it is possible for you to change your mind, all you have to do will be to send a letter to the old address, the same that I gave you eighteen months ago, and it will find me. We shall start as soon after I return as possible. Will you promise to bear this in mind?"

"I will remember it with pleasure," Max replied; "but you may rest assured it will be of no use. I am clinging to respectability like a limpet to his rock, and, so far as I can see now, nothing will shake me from it."

"You don't know how I had set my heart upon having you with me," answered Moreas. "It is at times like this that one wants a good man at one's elbow. I am not going alone with those other fellows; of that you may be very sure. If I did, I'd never come back alive. With you at my side, however, I wouldn't mind if there were a hundred of them."

"You pay me a very high compliment," said Max; "but I am afraid that, unless you can find somebody else to take my place, you will have to do as you fear, that is to say, go on alone."

"Well, I will put my trust in faith," said the other. "Stranger things than that have turned up trumps before now. I've got a very solid belief in my luck, and somehow I've got a fancy that it won't desert me."

"We shall see," replied Max, "and now, if you have no more to say to me, I think I must be going on."

"You're quite sure I can't tempt you?" said Moreas.

"Quite," Max answered. "If I had nothing else to do, I'd go with you to-morrow; but, situated as I am, wild horses would not shift me."

"Well, bear the fact in mind that I shall be back in a month," said Moreas. "And also that the address I have already given you will find me. Farewell, Senor."

"Farewell, and _bon voyage_ to you," replied Max.

Then, with a wave of their hands, they parted, and Max continued his way towards the office for which he had been making when he had met Moreas.

He had been spending the greater portion of the day superintending the removal of some cargo on board a ship in the harbour, and, towards evening, made his way ashore again to meet Brockford. Leaving the landing-stage, he proceeded up the street till he reached the Rua Direita. As he crossed the road he came within an ace of being knocked down by a cab, which was coming at a swift pace towards him. He looked up, as if to expostulate with the driver, and then, as