"Your Majesty's coming is unexpected," he said. "I trust that there is no ill news from the seat of war."
"There is no news, save good news," the King answered, having handed a chair to Marie. "Yesterday's battle you all know about. I will tell you the prospects later. Meanwhile, I see that you have a stranger here. What has Monsieur Gourdolis to say to us?"
Gourdolis rose slowly to his feet. He was a man of resource, a shrewd and ready diplomatist. Already he was scheming how to turn to his own advantage the King's unexpected presence. He played a bold card.
"Your Majesty," he said, respectfully, "it was painful to me to put forward my master's propositions to the Council of the House of Laws in your absence, it is still more painful to do so in your presence. I speak, however, to the representatives of a nation whose liberty and whose very existence is threatened, and I offer them--in a word--salvation. That is my excuse for my presence here to-day."
"What your offer really amounts to is no doubt the Russian yoke instead of the Turkish," Ughtred remarked, bitterly. "My forefathers have tasted more than once of Muscovite generosity."
"Your Majesty," he said, "you wrong my country, and my master. Our demands are very simple, and I lay the terms of them here upon the table. The only conditions upon which I regret to say that my master is immovable is the immediate abdication of your Majesty."
"Is the Duke of Reist cognizant of this, and willing to accept the throne?" the King asked.
"He is, your Majesty," Baron Doxis answered.
"It is false," she declared. "My brother is a patriot, and he has taken the oath of allegiance to the King. I pledge my word for his that he will keep that oath."
A murmur of blank amazement was followed by a dead silence. Gourdolis was speechless. The King looked around him, sternly.
"Have I by chance stumbled upon a conspiracy?" he asked. "What do you say, Taverner, and you, Valgrosse? Did you come here prepared to listen to such a proposition as this?"
"Indeed, your Majesty," Taverner answered, hastily, "I did not."
The old Baron, who, for many years had been chairman of the House of Laws, rose slowly to his feet.
"Your Majesty," he said, "I will admit that I alone of those present here had some knowledge of this proposal. I hope that your Majesty will not look upon my presence here as disloyal or unseemly. Only in my heart is deep engraven the love of my country and her people, and the one dread of my life has been the coming of the Turk. Your Majesty, no one has been a more sincere admirer than myself of the wise and careful manner in which you have ruled this country. Young though you are, you have more than fulfilled our most sanguine expectations. Only I fear that unaided we may as well hope to stem the tide of the mighty Danube as repel this Turkish invasion."