King Oscar the Silent

by John Fleming Wilson

 

King Oscar the Silent

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BY JOHN FLEMING WILSON

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A SHORT STORY.

I WAS not always a bank-clerk. Once upon a time I was the prime minister of a kingdom. True, that kingdom is not often mentioned in the daily journals, and one never hears of So-and-So being accredited to Hibiscus as minister extraordinary and envoy plenipotentiary. But I was prime minister to a king who ruled for many years over a whole archipelago—chief servant to King Oscar, known throughout his part of the world as The Silent.

No historian, probably, will celebrate Hibiscus, nor will the events of my period of dignity find place in any written record. But my master was a great man. Retrospect takes nothing from his splendor. As I look back upon Hibiscus and its people, as I remember the activities of the day, the glitter of the night sky, the commerce that came to anchor in the bay, the pomp of festivals and the ceremonial of our society, it seems impossible that that realm has passed, leaving no trace upon human history, thrust aside into the appendix of civilization as a mere geographical fact.

Years ago, as I traveled on the trading-schooner Constance d’Arvers from the Sandwich group to the Lower Archipelago, Captain Surrennes told me, among a thousand items of little moment, of Hibiscus. “It is ruled,” he said, “by a philosopher. All Germans approach philosophy by the way of science. King Oscar studied birds, and by degrees, pursuing his profession, he arrived in the South Seas. Here he became a philosopher. He has not spoken for a dozen years.”

Silence is recognized as one form of wisdom: but I failed to see the great achievement of this German scientist in conquering speech until I landed on Hibiscus and fell under his personal sway. In order that this silent king's superiority may be apparent, I shall narrate, briefly, the course of his latter years, and the coup d'état, supreme triumph of his sagacity—and finale of his reign!

How shall I detail my emotions that first day I landed on Hibiscus and saw that huge figure sitting under the shad ow of the palm—just beyond the white road that marked the thoroughfare of his chief village? Fancy to yourself me, a young and quizzical fellow, ready for adventure, in love with life, with song, with the warm breath of the tropics, coming gaily ashore from a little schooner, turning to wave farewell to Surrennes, laughing at the tumbling children on the water’s edge, and then suddenly coming out of the throng into the presence of a silent, inscrutable, motionless king.

It was morning. The shadows were still long, and the breeze, not yet wearied by the sun, swept softly through the frondage of the palms and shook the scarlet flowers of the hibiscus in a sparkle of flame. Under my feet the white path ran sinuously to the very steps of the king’s house. And there, in front of me, appeared suddenly a Presence.

Grossly, he was a mountain of a man; he sat in a cumbrous, massive chair. His pillar-like legs rose from the ground to his huge knees; the span of his thighs was that of a cask, and his portly, rotund girth filled the chair. Vast shoulders, surmounted by a round head, dominated the whole figure.

As I came to a stop, this tremendous being opened his eyes and gazed at me. In that rough-hewn, immense countenance it seemed as if, for an instant, two windows had been opened and the master of the edifice had looked forth.

Careless as I was, in those days, I took off my hat.

“I have come to trade,” I said, by way of introduction.

The eyes, serene, deep, and composed, looked a moment more. Then they closed. My errand was understood. I was dismissed.

I had traveled here on an errand of pure commerce. I stayed to become the servant of this philosopher.

I cannot explain how it was that, seeing him in his eternal repose in that chair under the palm, viewing the daily miracle of his silence, I fell under the yoke of his despotism, abandoned bright prospects of wealth, and was content to be at his right hand, minister of his kingdom, interpreter of that slow glance, reader of those changeless features. But so it happened.

Years passed. Each dawn saw the king seated in his chair. Each noon passed over his head without eliciting a single movement; night settled down from the hills and cast over that immutable, gigantic figure the majesty of obscurity. I went about the business of the island; I trafficked and ruled; I was the Providence of a thousand natives under his invisible scepter. Wealth poured in by every schooner. Hibiscus became rich. My duties multiplied. And still each day I was conscious of that huge Presence seated there under the palm.

You demand to know how it was that we obeyed when there was no order.

I cannot tell. We went our ways, transacted our business, lived, loved, hated, went up the hill for our last journey with the mourners chanting, and all under the spell of that silent master. I only know that, in my frequent perplexities, I went up the path to the king’s house, came before that immense figure, bore the brief gaze of those eyes—and my difficulties were dissipated into air. And each time I took away with me a new conviction of the infinite wisdom that reposed in that unwieldy body of flesh.

II.

We were a strange society: traders, adventurers, natives, gay women seeking obscurity, missionaries seeking souls, soldiers fighting for pay—all the tangle of humanity that could gather on an outlying, unpublic island of refuge. There were dances in the pavilion, flirtations on the Prospect, intrigues, plots, murders, jealousies—all the paraphernalia with which we dress our lives. Over all, the Silent One.

And he was human—had been—too. A wife sat in the verandas of the king’s house, eternally busy over some trifle. And far away, in Honolulu, we knew there was a son, the heir of the philosopher. But no one can picture the remoteness of the events of which these were the sign. For centuries, one would think, the king had sat in silence under the palm.

So the years passed, and the mountain of flesh reigned in eternal repose. But on the horizon the cloud shaped itself.

One can easily imagine that, where there was a kingdom and an heir, intrigue was not absent. Heirs return and claim their heritages. Philosophers die. Therefore, a hundred mothers preened their daughters’ plumage and gossiped of the time to come. A hundred girls wove wreaths and anointed their faces with oil to enhance their beauty against the day of the home-coming.

As that day drew—inevitably—near, the great question came more and more before my mind. What was to end this silence? What word was to break from this eternal rumination—message of wisdom, of meditation, final determination of the problem of life? Curiosity grew upon me. I came into the Presence with thoughts anticipating the day; I watched the slow lift of the eyes, felt the vast import of the closing lids, departed with my head over my shoulder for fear that the moment might have arrived.

This is a world where we ask one another: What do you make of it? and pass on, shaking our heads. Each dawn has its great interrogation. At the last moment, in the ear of Death our lips form a question. Think what it was to live in this Presence, under the eyes of this man who knew, who had solved, the problem in that silence of years! By Jove! the balance of my ledgers, to-night, held not certainty such as we were as sured lay behind this wordless immobility.

I swear to you that, commercial as I am—as we all were, God knows—I never forgot, in the glamour of the day, amid the clangor of business, or the soft murmurs of the women at nightfall, the portent of this kingly philosopher, this philosophic king. We played like children in Hibiscus; but ever conscious of that watchful, serene spirit looking out of the windows in that unwieldy, gross habitation of flesh. Hence this story, dénouement of silence.

As prime minister, it fell upon me to speak, as the king’s mouthpiece, of the heir. Never was such a questioning: sly women besought me at morning, as their daughters passed down, flower-wreathed, to bathe in the surf; bold mothers sung praises of their offspring to the tune of flattery; the maidens themselves posed before me, that my ministerial eye might be entranced and a match made.

For this heir was wealthy—oh, very well-to-do, indeed. He would have all the islands, the army to exploit them, the schooners to carry his toll to Australian ports, the treasury bursting with gold—all the hereditaments of the King of Hibiscus.

I kept a splendid poise. In two years I dashed no hope and promised nothing. These intriguers, when they suspected me, passed secretly up the path into the Presence. There they saw the king—silent, his slow lids half raised over his inscrutable eyes. And they came away—hushed, afraid, forgetful of their aspirations.

But it could not go on forever. It was decreed that the youth should come home to Hibiscus, where he had not been seen for a dozen years. His coming was announced. I myself promulgated the news.

Imagine the fervor of those days! Fancy the preening of plumage, hum of midnight confab, susurration of scheming women, laughter of girls gossiping over the future.

Men are prone to mistake such gentle clamor for harmless trifling. I, the prime minister, made this error. I enjoyed the fever of preparation, the industry of coquetry making ready for conquest. I walked among that giddy throng, confident that when the time came I should brush to one side all this fuss and accomplish a statesmanlike stroke—marry this heir to a worthy consort, do as the silent one approved.

I met the youth at the beach when he came. The- steamer rolled outside the harbor, the town seethed inside; a boat came spinning in through the reef; the people cheered; a natty officer sprang ashore, and trunks followed him. Then came the heir. Ah, the heir! When I saw him, I also saw, as if a shadow behind him, the great form of the king, that mountain of silence, inscrutable philosopher.

But the young man felt nothing of this. He kicked out his feet, settled his jacket about his narrow shoulders, turned away from the people of Hibuscus, from all of us who were come to receive him, and spoke to the steamship officer:

“Queer outfit, aren’t they, Mac?”

Then he stared round at us.

“I’ll bet I’ll be bored inside of a day,” he added.

So he arrived.

III.

No need, I suppose, to tell you that he was a hapahaole—half-white? His mother was a Kanaka.

Well, what is the use of reasoning about it? There he was, quite small, quite insignificant—in fact, with the traits of his mixed blood weakly upon him. I tell you, I was of two minds: let him purse his lips and go back; let him stay, take up the glory that awaited him, be the king’s son.

But a prime minister has duties. I took the formal course and made him welcome.

“Your father is expecting you,” I said, taking his arm and leading him up that sinuous path that led to the Presence.

He seemed much put out.

“I’ve heard the old man is sort of queer,” he said uneasily. “I’ll be hanged if I know why I couldn’t stay in Honolulu and have a good time.”

“One owes a certain amount to one’s parents,” I said.

“Oh, the mother’s all right,” he replied. “I’ll be sort of glad to see her. Wonder why she didn’t come down to meet me? Didn’t she know I was coming?”

How could I explain that his mother was but an apparition, a remnant of a past age engaged in infinitesimal tasks of domesticity, ignored of all, only finding timid voice when the prime minister caught her at some surreptitious motherly preparation?

“She is well,” I said.

We walked up, the crowd following. The heir stared about him as we progressed, nodding as one after another called a shy greeting or flung a sharp glance upon him. Then, suddenly, Hibiscus drew back and we were alone. We turned into the open space where the king sat.

“There’s the old man,” murmured the heir, halting a little.

“Your father,” I said.

Our feet ceased to move, involuntarily, and we stood before that great figure, filling that huge chair, surmounted by the heavy, immobile face. I confess that I looked one side, cocking my ear. I expected a voice, the words that had not come for so many years.

How long that pregnant pause lasted I am unable to say. I found myself quite strained. My neck muscles ached. And there was no voice.

The heir twitched my arm. I looked into the king’s face.

In the silence of that little grove the greater silence pressed against us. The heavy-lidded eyes were open. Their gaze rested upon the young man, the heir to Hibiscus. It seemed to me—and I had read those darkling pupils for many years—as if they were dimmed. There was no message in them. They comprehended, but did not formulate. They saw, but there was no vision.

Scrutiny of scrutinies! I swear it seemed to me that at that moment the King of Hibiscus died, with his message unrevealed. And I was terribly angry. You see, I had awaited this answer to our great interrogation: What do you make of it all?

The heavy lids dropped slowly down. The eyes closed.

We went back hastily, the young man pulling at my arm. Once out in the path, with Hibiscus crying round us, he spoke.

“The old fellow’s crazy—crazy as a centipede,” he chattered. “Why in the deuce didn’t he speak to me? Do you call that a fatherly way to act? Let him keep his odd manners for common people. I’m no child, to be treated this way.”

I soothed him as best I could. I told him that his father was a very strange character.

“He hasn’t spoken since I’ve known him,” I said.

“I hope mother isn’t taking after him,” he complained. “This is a nice way to welcome a son.”

But his mother slipped out of the grove and claimed him, with gentle exclamations and kisses, and so I left him and went about my duties.

I have already told you what a mixed lot we Hibiscans were. And I have indicated that I made a mistake in paying little attention to the intrigues for the favor of the king’s son. Had this young man been a strong spirit, or not one wholly unworthy, I believe we should have made out pretty well as it was. But you can easily imagine that the first woman that displayed the arts of finished coquetry took him—completely. So it came about.

The woman was a tall, very handsome person, with a striking complexion and blond hair. Where she came from, I cannot say exactly. Gossip had it that she was once well-to-do in the States, and had pinned her faith to a man who found civilization unhealthy. Whether he died or no, I cannot tell. But here she was in Hibiscus, the very incarnation of the single-handed freebooter. Not that I dare say anything against her moral character. So far as I know, she was a good woman. But she had no women friends. Children, dogs, and men liked her. I esteemed her myself as one of the few worth a serious conversation with.

Don’t ask me how she picked this young fellow out of the crowd of flatterers and made him her own. She did it in two days. In three days they were on the Prospect together, and in four they had the town dinning with gossip.

My position was unenviable. I was the prime minister, and responsible for the king’s son. It was my place to see that he married fittingly, that he prepared himself for the onerous duties that would in time devolve upon him. Here was a woman of no positive repute snatching my ward from under my very eyes.

Manlike, and most unwisely, I approached her on the subject. I have never forgotten that interview. It marked the beginning of that self-mistrust that has made me, from the practical ruler of a large and flourishing realm, a mere accountant, a bank-clerk.

“I am going to take you into my confidence,” I said, finding her alone over her midday breakfast.

“That is odd,” she replied. “I thought you had no confidence in me.”

“Personally, I am afraid of you,” I said, in the foolish hope that flattery might ameliorate her attitude. “And in the present case, I am afraid for another.”

“Do you represent the eligible young women of Hibiscus?” she inquired. “I understand, of course, that it is about young Oscar. I believe there are a round hundred young women each thinking he ought to marry her.”

“There is one whom he ought to marry,” I responded with proper emphasis.

She pondered this gently. Then she said: “Is it possible that I am not the one? Do I understand that you are so ungallant?”

“That is my meaning,” I said, gaining courage. “You see, his father has hopes of him. The business here calls for careful management. The young man is very wealthy. He is to be practically the king of all these islands. You see the point, of course?”

“I see but one point,” she replied. “He is distinctly worth my while.”

“You intend to marry him?” I asked bluntly.

“I intend that he shall marry me,” she said, still gently.

I left, after a fruitless errand, feeling, indeed, that I had myself brought matters to a crisis.

In my anxiety, the following days I went often into the presence of the silent philosopher. Day after day his heavy-lidded eyes gazed at me, delivered no message, and closed again. I was left to fight the battle alone.

But there is a destiny above all speech and intrigue. That destiny brought about the great coup d’état of which I spoke at first. Listen, and hear the story of the end of Hibiscus.

IV.

One day, when I had given up hope, and the mothers reviled me because the heir was going to marry a white woman from nowhere, leaving the beauties of the kingdom to furbish their coquetries for lesser game, a schooner hauled her wind off the harbor and a man came ashore. He was a straight fellow, very quiet, but of a determined and astute air.

What he came for I could not discern, until Colonel Tulliver, the head of the regiment that defended the flag and treasury of Hibiscus, sought me out and told me that this James Smith desired to take service with us.

“He’s a useful sort of chap,” said the colonel, wagging his head. “And if the French take a notion to turn this island over to some of their freebooters to plunder, we’ll need men of his blood. He’ll be worth the money.”

“What do you know of him?” I demanded.

The colonel winked.

“As much as any one knows of any one on this island, or need know,” he answered. “What does it matter why he comes here?”

“He doesn’t look like that sort,” I expostulated. “He seems to have some definite purpose.”

“So have we all,” was the retort. “Only we don’t all talk about it.”

“Neither does he,” I said warmly.

“I can guess,” said the colonel, filling his glass. “It’s the woman that has young Oscar’s ear that he is after, if I don’t mistake.”

I did not display my relief. In fact, I made some little difficulty about putting the James Smith on the pay-roll, eager as I was to offset the woman’s influence. But, of course, I acquiesced.

I suspected that I had made a great stroke of policy when, two days afterward, the heir informed me that he was to be married to Miss Reynolds the next week.

“I think I’ve made a good match there,” he enlarged on his hopes. “She’ll make this town sit up, all right. Give me dash and beauty.”

“What will your father say?” I demanded.

“Nothing—as usual,” he answered flippantly.

“You’ll have to tell him,” I said. “I won’t.”

“That’ll be all right,” he replied easily. “Laura will see him to-morrow.”

I took it as an idle vaunt. But my surprise was great, the next morning, to find Miss Reynolds and the king’s son close behind me when I approached the open grove where the Silent King held his court. I was glad to see that the young man was hesitant. He used much strong language of an idle kind, and berated his luck.

“You can go first,” I informed them. “Good news before business. I shall wait.”

I stepped aside, and they passed me. I shall always remember the aspect of their backs; the young man’s narrow shoulders working with irritation, and the young woman’s squared haughtily, indifferently.

They came before that motionless, huge form, and the son fidgeted while the woman stared—as I could see from where I stood—insolently into the inscrutable eyes of the king.

“We came here on a pleasant errand,” she said in her high, clear voice. “We came to ask your blessing. We are going to be married.”

I waited for the response. I think we all waited, even the woman, spite of her high demeanor.

As we stood there the boom of the distant surf rose in my ears. I heard the sound of a woman’s laughter. A snatch of song drifted in through the palms. As the fronds moved in the light wind, a ray of sunlight struck down across the rough visage of the king, and lighted for one instant a fire in his eyes. The frond swayed back and the gleam died. That was all. There was no word else, no response to this insolence—only silence.

I shall never forget the woman as she stood there, challenging this unspeaking being that ruled us all, whose presence alone had been our law for years, whose serenity held the content of all philosophy. She was superb. Even in her retreat she was defiant. She picked up her skirts as she left, and refused to look back.

At the turn of the path the heir twisted his face over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of the inscrutable author of his being; but the woman passed on, head high, disdainful, confident.

V.

That night I called upon Miss Reynolds at her home up the Prospect. I found her and the king’s son finishing their dinner on the piazza of the place. They received me cordially, as one still worth cultivating, though beaten.

“Have some pear salad,” she said hospitably. “It will cool you off. Prime ministers should never get too warm. It’s not good for diplomacy.”

“I’m not here on a diplomatic mission,” I explained. “It would be hard to say why I am in your house. But I think this is the time for frank speaking. I have not approved of this match; but that is past and gone. I only wished to know what you intended to do after the marriage.”

I looked at the heir. He twisted in his seat and smiled irritably at the woman. She returned his smile very calmly. Then she said: “That is very fair of you. I suppose you want to know whether you will be left in charge of matters, as you have been.”

“The king is still alive,” I suggested.

“Do you come from him?” she inquired.

“I do,” I answered boldly. “In fact, you see that after the marriage I shall have to ask him what allowance I may make you and what I shall do. He may determine that you are to leave the island.”

I cannot justify my attitude otherwise than by saying that I had decided to take matters into my own hand. Here destiny steps in.

The words were scarcely out of my mouth when James Smith stepped across the lighted piazza.

“And here am I,” he said quietly. “I must be counted in.”

We stared at him, all of us. He returned the stare. Then he spoke to the woman.

“Laura,” he said, “this farce must end.”

Amazed as I was at the intrusion, I saw the admiration in her eyes when she turned to him.

“What farce?” she demanded.

“This farce,” he answered. “You know you love me.”

It was astounding, the assurance of his manner. I felt that he spoke with the knowledge of years. And my senses could not deceive me as to her heart. She responded to his tone with a flush—the first, I swear, I had ever seen on her creamy cheeks. But she turned from him to the king’s son.

If ever a man had a chance to prove himself, he had. But he fumbled with his cuffs and stammered something about “impudence.” Under her gaze, I thought for one moment that he would find his manhood. I tell you, he had his chance. One word of defiance, one movement to assert his rights, one generous impulse to strike for his own soul and the woman he had sworn to love and cherish, would have saved him. But he stammered weakly.

Slowly the woman’s rich eyes turned back to the man who had spoken so boldly. I see him yet, destiny incarnate, the very magnet of her passion, master of her soul!

And then, in that tense moment, there was a shuffling sound on the steps, as if a heavy, unwieldy mass were being slowly moved toward the lighted circle on the piazza. I turned, we all turned, and saw—the king!

He came up with a vast heave that shook the house. His tremendous limbs seemed too great for the frail planks. His huge body loomed through the shadow. The noise ceased. He had come to a pause, his great eyes fixed upon us—upon the scene, upon its actors, upon his son.

In that portentous silence the history of Hibiscus was made and finished. Under those silent eyes we played our parts to the end.

The woman was the first to recover herself. She half rose, and bowed.

“Here is the king,” she said gently.

The king’s son twisted in his chair and stared, like one stricken with terror, upon this apparition. James Smith looked also, but distrait and without sign of recognition.

“I came for you, Laura,” he said tensely. “You’ve played me long enough. You want power and money and position. But you love me. You need me.”

Once more she turned to the other, to her betrothed. I could see that she hoped he would save her from herself; show a valiancy that would help her word of honor, and assure to her what she had so shrewdly intrigued to attain. But the heir was under the spell of the cold eyes of the Silent Presence.

I would have leaped to save that woman for myself. She was magnificent. But Destiny! We all cry out that name. It made me bank-clerk, instead of the prime minister of a king! Destiny held him in thrall, and the eyes of the woman turned away from him, irrevocably, leaving nothing to him but memory. She looked into the face of the man, and her heart ran out to him in a great flood.

“I don’t care”—she swept her hand around superbly—“for all this. I’ll marry you.”

He received her surrender gallantly.

“You shall have all this, too,” he said. “I am strong enough to take it.”

I looked to the king as to a shrine, confident that at last the time had come for the word that was to break the silence of the years and give us the answer to our question: What do you make of it all?

In fact, we all looked—son, prime minister, woman, lover; and we saw, all of us, the answer to the world-old query. The heavy-lidded eyes were open upon us. Their message was clear. The years spoke. From that huge, silent figure flowed the ultimate doom of Hibiscus, of the weakling, of the prime minister.

And James Smith reached across the gulf and took the woman—took her with all her beauty, her passionate heart, her power for good and for evil to himself and the world; took her from the feeble, the inert—and with her, Hibiscus.

Thus I am become a bank-clerk. What did the king say? He said nothing. Not a word from out that silence of years. He had seen. And from the silence of that long rumination he passed into that final silence, leaving Hibiscus, leaving his son, me, life itself. Strange message! Ultimate solution of the whole matter—to see and to be silent!