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vi Preface

the topics. There is no loss of continuity when the book is read in either of
these ways. To ensure this continuity when you rearrange material, you may
need to move sections rather than entire chapters. However, only large sec-
tions in convenient locations are moved. To help customize a particular order
for any class’s needs, the end of this preface contains a dependency chart, and
each chapter has a “Prerequisites” section that explains what material needs to
be covered before each section in that chapter.

Reordering 1: Earlier Classes

To effectively design classes, a student needs some basic tools such as control
structures and function definitions. This basic material is covered in Chapters
1 through 6. After completing Chapter 6, students can begin to write their own
classes. One possible reordering of chapters that allows for such early coverage
of classes is the following:
Basics: Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. This material covers all control struc-
tures, function definitions, and basic file I/O. Chapter 3, which covers ad-
ditional control structures, could be deferred if you wish to cover classes
as early as possible.
Classes and namespaces: Chapter 10, Sections 11.1 and 11.2 of Chapter 11,
and Chapter 12. This material covers defining classes, friends, overloaded
operators, and namespaces.
Arrays, strings and vectors: Chapters 7 and 8
Pointers and dynamic arrays: Chapter 9
Arrays in classes: Sections 11.3 and 11.4 of Chapter 11
Inheritance: Chapter 15
Recursion: Chapter 14 (Alternately, recursion may be moved to later in the
course.)
Pointers and linked lists: Chapter 13
Any subset of the following chapters may also be used:
Exception handling: Chapter 16
Templates: Chapter 17
Standard Template Library: Chapter 18

Reordering 2: Classes Slightly Later but Still Early

This version covers all control structures and the basic material on arrays be-
fore doing classes, but classes are covered later than the previous ordering and
slightly earlier than the default ordering.
Basics: Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. This material covers all control struc-
tures, function definitions, and the basic file I/O.
 Preface vii

Arrays and strings: Chapter 7, Sections 8.1 and 8.2 of Chapter 8

Classes and namespaces: Chapter 10, Sections 11.1 and 11.2 of Chapter 11,
and Chapter 12. This material covers defining classes, friends, overloaded
operators, and namespaces.
Pointers and dynamic arrays: Chapter 9
Arrays in classes: Sections 11.3 and 11.4 of Chapter 11
Inheritance: Chapter 15
Recursion: Chapter 14. (Alternately, recursion may be moved to later in the
course.)
Vectors: Chapter 8.3
Pointers and linked lists: Chapter 13
Any subset of the following chapters may also be used:
Exception handling: Chapter 16
Templates: Chapter 17
Standard Template Library: Chapter 18

Accessibility to Students
It is not enough for a book to present the right topics in the right order. It is not
even enough for it to be clear and correct when read by an instructor or other
experienced programmer. The material needs to be presented in a way that is
accessible to beginning students. In this introductory textbook, I have endeav-
ored to write in a way that students find clear and friendly. Reports from the
many students who have used the earlier editions of this book confirm that
this style makes the material clear and often even enjoyable to students.

ANSI/ISO C++ Standard

This edition is fully compatible with compilers that meet the latest ANSI/ISO
C++ standard. At the time of this writing the latest standard is C++11.

Advanced Topics
Many “advanced topics” are becoming part of a standard CS1 course. Even if
they are not part of a course, it is good to have them available in the text as
enrichment material. This book offers a number of advanced topics that can
be integrated into a course or left as enrichment topics. It gives thorough cov-
erage of C++ templates, inheritance (including virtual functions), exception
handling, and the STL (Standard Template Library). Although this book uses
libraries and teaches students the importance of libraries, it does not require
any nonstandard libraries. This book uses only libraries that are provided with
essentially all C++ implementations.
viii Preface

Dependency Chart
The dependency chart on the next page shows possible orderings of chapters
and subsections. A line joining two boxes means that the upper box must be
covered before the lower box. Any ordering that is consistent with this partial
ordering can be read without loss of continuity. If a box contains a section
number or numbers, then the box refers only to those sections and not to the
entire chapter.

Summary Boxes
Each major point is summarized in a boxed section. These boxed sections are
spread throughout each chapter.

Self-Test Exercises
Each chapter contains numerous Self-Test Exercises at strategic points. Com-
plete answers for all the Self-Test Exercises are given at the end of each chapter.

VideoNotes
VideoNote VideoNotes are designed for teaching students key programming concepts and
techniques. These short step-by-step videos demonstrate how to solve ­problems
from design through coding. VideoNotes ­allow for self-paced ­instruction with
easy navigation including the ability to select, play, rewind, fast-forward, and
stop within each VideoNote exercise.

Online Practice and Assessment with MyProgrammingLab

MyProgrammingLab helps students fully grasp the logic, semantics, and syn-
tax of programming. Through practice exercises and immediate, personalized
feedback, MyProgrammingLab improves the programming competence of be-
ginning students who often struggle with the basic concepts and paradigms of
popular high-level programming languages.
A self-study and homework tool, a MyProgrammingLab course consists
of hundreds of small practice problems organized around the structure of this
textbook. For students, the system automatically detects errors in the logic and
syntax of their code submissions and offers targeted hints that enable students
to figure out what went wrong—and why. For instructors, a comprehensive
gradebook tracks correct and incorrect answers and stores the code inputted by
students for review.
MyProgrammingLab is offered to users of this book in partnership with
Turing’s Craft, the makers of the CodeLab interactive programming exer-
cise system. For a full demonstration, to see feedback from instructors and
students, or to get started using MyProgrammingLab in your course, visit
www.myprogramminglab.com.
 Preface ix

DISPLAY P.1   Dependency Chart

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 4 Chapter 5

Introduction C++ Basics Functions 1 Functions 2

Chapter 3
Chapter 6
More Flow
I/O Streams
of Control

Chapter 7
Chapter 14 Chapter 10
Arrays
Recursion Classes 1
7.1–7.3

Chapter 7
Chapter 11 *Chapter 16
7.4 Multi-
Classes 2 Exception
Dimensional
11.1–11.2 Handling
Arrays

Chapter 12
Chapter 8 Chapter 11
Separate
Strings and 11.3 Classes &
­Compilation
Vectors Arrays
& Namespaces

Chapter 9 Chapter 11
Chapter 13
Pointers and 11.4 Classes &
Pointers and
Dynamic Dynamic
Linked Lists
Arrays Arrays

Chapter 15
Inheritance

Chapter 17
Templates

*Chapter 16 contains
occasional references
to derived classes, Chapter 18
but those references STL
can be omitted
x Preface

Support Material
There is support material available to all users of this book and additional
material available only to qualified instructors.

Materials Available to All Users of this Book

■ Source Code from the book
■ PowerPoint slides
■ VideoNotes
To access these materials, go to:
www.pearsonhighered.com/savitch

Resources Available to Qualified Instructors Only

Visit Pearson Education’s instructor resource center at www.pearsonhighered
.com/irc to access the following instructor resources:
■ Instructor’s Resource Guide—including chapter-by-chapter teaching hints,
quiz questions with solutions, and solutions to many programming projects
■ Test Bank and Test Generator

■ PowerPoint Lectures—including programs and art from the text

■ Lab Manual

Integrated Development Environment (IDE) Resource Kits

Instructors who adopt this text can order it for students with a kit containing
five popular C++ IDEs (Microsoft® Visual Studio 2013 Express Edition, Dev
C++, NetBeans, Eclipse, and CodeLite) and access to a Web site containing
written and video tutorials for getting started in each IDE. For ordering infor-
mation, please contact your campus Pearson Education representative.

Contact Us
Your comments, suggestions, questions, and corrections are always welcome.
Please e-mail them to [email protected]

Acknowledgments
Numerous individuals and groups have provided me with suggestions, discus-
sions, and other help in preparing this textbook. Much of the first edition of
this book was written while I was visiting the Computer Science Department
at the University of Colorado in Boulder. The remainder of the writing on the
first edition and the work on subsequent editions was done in the Computer
Science and Engineering Department at the University of California, San Diego
(UCSD). I am grateful to these institutions for providing a conducive environ-
ment for teaching this material and writing this book.
 Preface xi

I extend a special thanks to all the individuals who have contributed

critiques or programming projects for this or earlier editions and drafts of this book.
In alphabetical order, they are: Alex Feldman, Amber Settle, Andrew Burt, Andrew
Haas, Anne Marchant, Barney MacCabe, Bob Holloway, Bob Matthews, Brian
R. King, Bruce Johnston, Carol Roberts, Charles Dowling, Claire Bono, Cynthia
Martincic, David Feinstein, David Teague, Dennis Heckman, Donald Needham,
Doug Cosman, Dung Nguyen, Edward Carr, Eitan M. Gurari, Ethan Munson,
Firooz Khosraviyani, Frank Moore, Gilliean Lee, Huzefa Kagdi, James Stepleton,
Jeff Roach, Jeffrey Watson, Jennifer Perkins, Jerry Weltman, Joe Faletti, Joel Cohen,
John J. Westman, John Marsaglia, John Russo, Joseph Allen, Joseph D. Oldham,
Jerrold Grossman, Jesse Morehouse, Karla Chaveau, Ken Rockwood, Larry Johnson,
Len Garrett, Linda F. Wilson, Mal Gunasekera, Marianne Lepp, Matt Johnson,
Michael Keenan, Michael Main, Michal Sramka, Naomi Shapiro, Nat Martin, Noah
Aydin, Nisar Hundewale, Paul J. Kaiser, Paul Kube, Paulo Franca, Richard Borie,
Scot Drysdale, Scott Strong, Sheila Foster, Steve Mahaney, Susanne Sherba, Thomas
Judson, Walter A. Manrique, Wei Lian Chen, and Wojciech Komornicki.
I extend a special thanks to the many instructors who used early editions
of this book. Their comments provided some of the most helpful reviewing
that the book received.
Finally, I thank Kenrick Mock who implemented the changes in this
edition. He had the almost impossible task of pleasing me, my editor, and his
own sensibilities, and he did a superb job of it.
Walter Savitch
This page intentionally left blank
 To improving results

get with the programming

Through the power of practice and immediate personalized
feedback, MyProgrammingLab improves your performance.

Learn more at www.myprogramminglab.com

 Brief Contents

Table of Location of VideoNotes

Inside front cover and inside back cover

Chapter 1 Introduction to Computers and

C++ Programming 1

Chapter 2 C++ Basics 39

Chapter 3 More Flow of Control 111

Chapter 4 Procedural Abstraction and Functions That

Return a Value 181

Chapter 5 Functions for All Subtasks 251

Chapter 6 I/O Streams as an Introduction to Objects

and Classes 305

Chapter 7 Arrays 377

Chapter 8 Strings and Vectors 451

Chapter 9 Pointers and Dynamic Arrays 507

Chapter 10 Defining Classes 541

Chapter 11 Friends, Overloaded Operators, and Arrays

in Classes 619

xiv
 Brief Contents xv

Chapter 12 Separate Compilation and Namespaces 703

Chapter 13 Pointers and Linked Lists 739

Chapter 14 Recursion 789

Chapter 15 Inheritance 833

Chapter 16 Exception Handling 893

Chapter 17 Templates 925

Chapter 18 Standard Template Library 957

Appendices
1 C++ Keywords 1015
2 Precedence of Operators 1016
3 The ASCII Character Set 1018
4 Some Library Functions 1019
5 Inline Functions 1026
6 Overloading the Array Index
Square Brackets 1027
7 The this Pointer 1029
8 Overloading Operators as Member
Operators 1032

Index 1034
 Contents

Table of Location of VideoNotes

Inside front cover and inside back cover

Chapter 1 Introduction to Computers and C++

Programming 1

1.1 Computer Systems  2

Hardware 2
Software 7
High-Level Languages 8
Compilers 9
History Note 12

1.2 Programming and Problem-Solving 12

Algorithms 12
Program Design 15
Object-Oriented Programming 16
The Software Life Cycle 17

1.3 Introduction to C++ 18

Origins of the C++ Language 18
A Sample C++ Program 19
Pitfall: Using the Wrong Slash in \n 23
Programming Tip: Input and Output Syntax 23
Layout of a Simple C++ Program 24
Pitfall: Putting a Space Before the include File Name 26
Compiling and Running a C++ Program 26
Pitfall: Compiling a C++11 program 27
Programming Tip: Getting Your Program to Run 27

1.4 Testing and Debugging 29

Kinds of Program Errors 30
Pitfall: Assuming Your Program Is Correct 31

xvi
 Contents xvii

Chapter Summary 32
Answers to Self-Test Exercises 33
Practice Programs 35
Programming Projects 36

Chapter 2 C++ Basics 39

2.1 Variables and Assignments  40

Variables 40
Names: Identifiers 42
Variable Declarations 44
Assignment Statements 45
Pitfall: Uninitialized Variables 47
Programming Tip: Use Meaningful Names 49

2.2 Input and Output  50

Output Using cout 50
Include Directives and Namespaces 52
Escape Sequences 53
Programming Tip: End Each Program with a \n or endl 55
Formatting for Numbers with a Decimal Point 55
Input Using cin 56
Designing Input and Output 58
Programming Tip: Line Breaks in I/O 58

2.3 Data Types and Expressions  60

The Types int and double 60
Other Number Types 62
C++11 Types 63
The Type char 64
The Type bool 66
Introduction to the Class string 66
Type Compatibilities 68
Arithmetic Operators and Expressions 69
Pitfall: Whole Numbers in Division 72
More Assignment Statements 74

2.4 Simple Flow of Control  74

A Simple Branching Mechanism 75
Pitfall: Strings of Inequalities 80
Pitfall: Using = in place of == 81
Compound Statements 82
xviii Contents

Simple Loop Mechanisms 84

Increment and Decrement Operators 87
Programming Example: Charge Card Balance 89
Pitfall: Infinite Loops 90

2.5 Program Style  93

Indenting 93
Comments 93
Naming Constants 95

Chapter Summary 98
Answers to Self-Test Exercises 98
Practice Programs 103
Programming Projects 105

Chapter 3 More Flow of Control 111

3.1 Using Boolean Expressions  112

Evaluating Boolean Expressions 112
Pitfall: Boolean Expressions Convert to int Values 116
Enumeration Types (Optional) 119

3.2 Multiway Branches  120

Nested Statements 120
Programming Tip: Use Braces in Nested Statements 121
Multiway if-else Statements 123
Programming Example: State Income Tax 125
The switch Statement 128
Pitfall: Forgetting a break in a switch Statement 132
Using switch Statements for Menus 133
Blocks 135
Pitfall: Inadvertent Local Variables 138

3.3 More About C++ Loop Statements  139

The while Statements Reviewed 139
Increment and Decrement Operators Revisited 141
The for Statement 144
Pitfall: Extra Semicolon in a for Statement 149
What Kind of Loop to Use 150
Pitfall: Uninitialized Variables and Infinite Loops 152
The break Statement 153
Pitfall: The break Statement in Nested Loops 154
 Contents xix

3.4 Designing Loops  155

Loops for Sums and Products 155
Ending a Loop 157
Nested Loops 160
Debugging Loops 162

Chapter Summary 165

Answers to Self-Test Exercises 166
Practice Programs 172
Programming Projects 174

Chapter 4 Procedural Abstraction and Functions

That Return a Value 181

4.1 Top-Down Design  182

4.2 Predefined Functions  183

Using Predefined Functions 183
Random Number Generation 188
Type Casting 190
Older Form of Type Casting 192
Pitfall: Integer Division Drops the Fractional Part 192

4.3 Programmer-Defined Functions  193

Function Definitions 193
Functions That Return a Boolean Value 199
Alternate Form for Function Declarations 199
Pitfall: Arguments in the Wrong Order 200
Function Definition–Syntax Summary 201
More About Placement of Function Definitions 202
Programming Tip: Use Function Calls in Branching Statements 203

4.4 Procedural Abstraction  204

The Black-Box Analogy 204
Programming Tip: Choosing Formal Parameter Names 207
Programming Tip: Nested Loops 208
Case Study: Buying Pizza 211
Programming Tip: Use Pseudocode 217

4.5 Scope and Local Variables  218

The Small Program Analogy 218
Programming Example: Experimental Pea Patch 221
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
man who had voluntarily left a life of ease for one of toil, purely in
the hope of setting an example to his nation.
But this admiration was not fated to endure very long. As
Rubenssohn grew accustomed to the company in which he found
himself, the vagueness left his eyes. In Cyril he discovered one who
appealed to a different side of his nature, and a mocking spirit took
possession of him. Mansfield and the melancholy Paschics listened
with bated breath while the guest embarked upon a career of
destruction, sparing neither the beliefs common to mankind
generally nor those of his own people. He ridiculed with the utmost
impartiality the ideas of love and immortality, the tyranny of the Law,
and the Messianic hopes of Rabbi Schaul. The keen arrows of his wit
played round each subject in turn, disclosing with cruel certainty the
weak spot or the flaw. He made no attempt to deny the degradation
of his people, and in Mansfield’s view he proposed no remedy for it.
He believed in the Jewish race, it seemed, and he accorded a
qualified toleration to Judaism on account of its services in the
preservation of the race, but his Judaism possessed neither
prophecies nor the hope of a Messiah, and existed independently of
any religious sanctions. Its ecclesiastical system had been evolved
naturally enough during the progress of the race, and ascribed, as
other nations ascribed their religions, to the guidance of a higher
power. Freedom, toleration, a more natural mode of life, these things
would in his view raise the Jews far above the level of other nations,
and then the old fetters which had held the race together might
safely be shaken off. Mansfield thought of the prosperous Jews
whom he had met at Alexandria, and who enjoyed all these
blessings already, and his heart rose in revolt against Rubenssohn’s
philosophy. If this was to be the end, if the Jews had remained a
separate people merely that in the end of the ages they might be
better fed, clothed, housed, than the nations, throwing aside
callously the prophecies which had cheered them and the faith that
had sustained them in their sorrows, if they were to be bereft at
once of hope and of religion, then the heaviest of their former woes
would be a lighter curse than their new prosperity.
 “I had rather be in the wrong with Lady Phil and Princess
Soudaroff than in the right with Rubenssohn,” he decided,
remembering how often he had listened to the old lady as she
expounded her views on the Jewish question and her interpretation
of prophecy, Philippa at her side concurring enthusiastically in all
that was said. This time, however, he did not confide his feelings to
Cyril.
Jerusalem was the next place of interest to be reached, and
Mansfield had mapped out for himself a very definite plan for
occupying his leisure hours here. He intended to visit all the
missionary establishments in and around the city in which Lady
Caerleon was interested, and to photograph them and their inmates.
Any spare time was to be devoted to views of Jerusalem itself, and
by dint of these labours Mansfield hoped to provide a peace-offering
which would not be unacceptable to Philippa’s mother, and might
even tend to soften her heart towards him. But his plans were
interrupted, and his fair project brought to a premature conclusion,
owing to the greed of human nature. No sooner was it known that
Cyril had arrived in Jerusalem than his lodgings were fairly besieged.
Jews, Mohammedans and Christians, Syrians, Levantines, Greeks,
Albanians, European adventurers of all nations, crowded to wait
upon him. Since the famous revelations of Dr Texelius, so promptly
contradicted by the Pannonian official papers, nothing had been said
of Count Mortimer as a candidate for the governorship of Palestine,
but there appeared to be a general feeling that the future of the
country lay in the hands of this unpretending traveller, and the time-
servers would not lose their opportunity. Some of them wanted
concessions and some contracts, some Government offices and
some commissions in the Jewish army or police, some wished merely
to gain the general goodwill of the possible ruler, and some were
anxious to confer benefits on him, in the shape of invitations to their
houses, or gifts of horses, carpets, and works of art, without, of
course, the slightest ulterior design. Cyril disappointed them
grievously by refusing alike their favours and their requests, assuring
them that he was simply an agent of the Syndicate, and Mansfield
developed a prickly suspiciousness that made him distrust any one
who addressed him civilly. This was the result of an adventure of his
own. Pausing in a back street one day to photograph a picturesque
archway, he was accosted by a respectable citizen, who invited him
into his garden, where was to be seen a piece of ruined wall on
which no tourist’s eye had ever lighted. Mansfield accepted the
invitation, took two or three photographs, and submitted to be
regaled with coffee and sweetmeats, all before he discovered that
his host had recognised him, and was anxious to obtain the contract
for clothing the army of the Jewish State. Then he rose up and fled,
with his faith in humanity sorely shattered, and kept rigidly to the
beaten track until he was rejoiced by Cyril’s decision to leave the city
for a short time. Business was impossible while the envoy was so
persistently mobbed, and it was advisable to pay a flying visit to
Jericho, since a sheikh in the neighbourhood of that place had
threatened to make himself disagreeable with regard to the fords of
the Jordan.
It was clear that Cyril’s movements must be kept to some extent
a secret, if he was to conduct the negotiations with the Roumi
authorities, for which he had come, without being pursued into the
very audience-chamber by the greedy throng of privilege-hunters.
Accordingly, he put the matter into the hands of the Chevalier
Goldberg’s agent, who secured him quarters for the night at Jericho,
in the house of a wealthy Jew, and despatched beforehand all that
was necessary for comfort. In this way Mansfield and his employer
were able to leave Jerusalem as if for a morning ride, and meeting,
when out of sight of the city, the guide and escort provided for
them, ride on at once to Jericho. The sight of the huge Scythian
hospice, constructed of late years for the accommodation of
pilgrims, suggested to Mansfield that their visit might have excited
less remark in the place if they had sought a lodging there, but Cyril
laughed at the idea.
“I didn’t know you were so anxious to see the last of me,” he
said. “The monks would indeed think that their enemy was delivered
into their hand, and it would be sheer ingratitude not to prepare a
special cup of coffee for his benefit.”
 The sheikh proved more easy to deal with than had been
expected, and Cyril and Mansfield spent the evening at his village,
discussing in the most friendly spirit the various matters in dispute.
As the guests rode back to their quarters, passing the great fountain
called Ain-es-Sultan, Mansfield directed Cyril’s attention to several
lights which dotted the side of a precipitous mountain about a mile
away.
“What can those be?” he said. “I didn’t see any houses there by
daylight.”
“That must be Jebel Karantal, the Mount of Temptation,” said
Cyril, “and the lights come from the hermits’ caves. We might ride
over there in the morning, if you are anxious to see the holy men in
their native dirt.”
As Mansfield reflected that the picture of a real live hermit might
help to console Philippa for all the photographs he had not had time
to take at Jerusalem, he accepted the offer gratefully, and did not
fail to remind Cyril of it the next morning. They rode at an easy pace
across the plain, with its thickets of tamarisk and thorn, starting so
many partridges and other birds that the hunter’s instinct awoke in
Mansfield, and he lamented more than once that they were not
spending several days at Jericho, so as to get a little shooting.
Arrived at the foot of the path which led up the mountain, they
found standing there a horse with a European saddle, in the charge
of a native servant, who told their grooms that his master, a Frank
gentleman, had started about half an hour ago to make the ascent.
“We are a little late,” said Cyril. “Evidently this place is becoming
popular as a tourist resort. I see a whole horde of Scythian pilgrims
in the distance,” and he pointed to a dingy mass of people, bearing
banners and sacred pictures, and headed by two priests in shining
vestments, that was approaching from the direction of Jericho. “But
they are not likely to have brought cameras with them, and we must
only hope for your sake, Mansfield, that our fellow-countryman has
been equally forgetful.”
Leaving their horses with the grooms, they began to make the
ascent of the mountain, finding the only path that offered itself
alarmingly narrow and steep. It grew worse instead of better higher
up, and when they were between three and four hundred feet above
the plain, Cyril wiped his heated brow and sat down upon a large
stone which lay temptingly in the shadow of the rock, on a ledge
into which the path widened at this point.
“I draw the line here, Mansfield. I may be getting old, but my
life is valuable to me, and I don’t feel justified in endangering it by
any further breakneck feats. If you are conscious of a yearning to
risk your neck on that giddy ascent in front, by way of emulating a
fly walking up a wall, pray go on, and I will sit here and await
developments. It will be some consolation to your afflicted relatives
that I am at hand to give your scattered remains decent burial.”
Mansfield had been carrying his camera under his arm, but now
he slung it over his shoulder by its strap, so as to leave his hands
free, laughing as he did so, and applied himself to the further climb
with heroic determination, steadfastly avoiding the temptation to
look downwards. If his glance strayed for a moment from the almost
perpendicular path to the sheer precipice below, he felt sure that
nothing could save him from making personal acquaintance with its
depths. Presently he came to another ledge, which formed the
approach to the mouth of a cave, but glancing into the semi-
darkness within the dwelling, he caught sight of a pith helmet. It
was clear that the tourist whose horse they had seen below was
talking to the hermit, and Mansfield seized joyfully the opportunity of
outstripping him and reaching the summit first. Another terrific climb
brought him to the foot of an unsafe-looking flight of wooden steps,
at the top of which an elderly monk, very fat and very dirty, stood
smiling hospitably. Mansfield unstrapped his camera and
photographed him in the act, then accepted his beaming invitation
to mount the steps to his cave. Here he took one or two more
photographs, making gallant attempts the while to talk to his host in
classical Greek pronounced in the modern fashion, and smiling
broadly, by way of making his goodwill evident. His conversation or
his smiles, or both, seemed to win the heart of the hermit, for he
found himself invited, partly by signs, to sling the camera over his
shoulder again, preparatory to climbing another dizzy ascent, at the
summit of which was situated the rock-hewn chapel of which his
host was the guardian. This was exactly what Mansfield was most
anxious to see, and he accepted the invitation with alacrity, but
stepped first to the edge of the little rock platform, in order to
estimate its distance from the plain.
To his surprise the greater part of the way he had traversed was
clearly visible, and he could see Cyril peacefully smoking a cigar
where he had left him. Receiving a wave of the hand in answer to
his shout, he was about to follow his guide up the face of the rock,
which at this point justified Cyril’s comparison by appearing quite
perpendicular, when his attention was attracted by the sight of a
crowd of people gathered round the horses and their grooms at the
foot of the hill. They were the Scythian pilgrims whom Cyril had
pointed out to him, and they were buzzing round the horses like a
swarm of angry bees. For a moment he thought they must be
intending to steal them, then he told himself that the presence of
the grooms would prevent that: the pilgrims were merely examining
the novel English saddles. He began the ascent, but, before passing
round a projecting rock which would cut off his view, he looked
down again at the plain. The pilgrims had quitted the horses, and
were rushing up the path in a confused mass, priests and people
mixed together, one man only being a little in advance. Mansfield’s
heart misgave him, and he pointed out the crowd to the hermit; but
it did not need the old man’s raised hands and look of shocked
surprise to tell him that the pilgrims should have mounted the hill in
slow procession, singing solemn litanies, and not with this
indecorous haste. Cyril’s allusion of the day before to the monks of
the Scythian hospice recurred to him, and, explaining hastily to the
hermit that he must go back at once, he turned to retrace his steps.
He tried to shout a warning from the platform in front of the cave;
but it was evident that Cyril regarded his frenzied gestures merely as
the result of an ebullition of animal spirits, for he waved his hand
with the same placidity as before. Giving up the attempt to make
himself understood, Mansfield addressed his energies afresh to the
task of descending, which proved to be even more difficult and
dangerous than that of ascending had been. He was out of sight of
Cyril now; but before he had covered half the distance that
separated them, a sound mounted to his ear which made him hurl
away his camera and dash headlong down the path, regardless of
his own safety. It was the crack of a revolver, the sound of which
travelled far in the clear air.
In the meantime, Cyril, smoking quietly on his fragment of rock,
and all unconscious of danger, was disturbed by the noise of angry
voices. Almost as they reached his ear, a haggard man, in the flat
cap and long, dull-grey coat of the Scythian peasant, rushed round
the corner of the path, and recoiled precipitately on catching sight of
him.
“Odd!” said Cyril to himself. “Mad, perhaps,” and mechanically
his hand sought his revolver in its accustomed pocket. His fingers
had scarcely closed upon it when the throng of pilgrims burst upon
him with furious shouts, and he had barely time to set his back
against the rocky wall before he found himself confronted by a
semicircle of angry faces, clenched fists, and menacing clubs.
“Kill him! kill the renegade!” was the cry. “Kill the traitor, and
save the Holy Places from the Jewish dogs!”
“You had better go on your way quietly,” shouted Cyril in his
best Scythian. “I am armed,” and he drew out the revolver.
“There are stones enough!” cried a voice, and a man who had
found a point of vantage flung a jagged piece of rock which struck
Cyril on the temple. The sight of the flowing blood appeared to
stimulate the ferocity of the mob, and deprive its members of such
hesitation as they may have felt in throwing themselves upon a
solitary man, for they sprang forward with a howl. Cyril had only
time to fire one shot into the air, in the hope partly of attracting
Mansfield’s notice and partly of frightening his assailants, before his
right arm was broken by a blow from a club as he raised the
revolver, which dropped from his hand. Hustled, beaten, and
knocked about, the blood streaming from his face, he had one thing,
and only one, in his favour, and this was that the pilgrims were so
closely pressed together on the narrow ledge as to be unable to get
him down and trample upon him. Presently he became aware that
one of them, who must have caught it as it fell, was holding the
revolver to his head. Before the trigger could be pulled, however, the
voice of a priest, who had mounted upon the fragment of rock upon
which the victim had been sitting, rang like a trumpet across the din.
“No shots! no shots! Will you give the heathen Roumis cause to
accuse us of murder? Throw the apostate over the precipice, so that
it may not be known whose hand executed judgment upon him.”
The man who held the revolver tossed it away reluctantly, and
joined with the rest in attempting to hustle Cyril to the edge of the
path. Crippled as he was, he fought savagely, contesting every inch
of ground, determined not to give his assailants the opportunity of
seizing him and hurling him down headlong. “If I go over, I won’t go
alone,” was the thought in his mind; and he fixed on a huge fellow,
whose efforts to catch him up bodily he had successfully foiled, as
the companion whom he would clutch with his last strength and
drag to destruction in his company. The unequal struggle was
approaching its only possible end as Cyril was driven farther and
farther from the rock. The pilgrims nearest the brink were beginning
to edge away to the right and left in order to secure their own
safety, thereby lessening the pressure on that side and adding to the
force arrayed against the doomed man, when a bullet whizzed past
Cyril’s ear and buried itself in the shoulder of the giant on whom he
had decided as his comrade in the fatal plunge.
“Bravo, Mansfield!” Cyril gathered breath to shout; but before
the words were out of his mouth there was another shot, and the
club fell from an uplifted hand which was brandishing it over his
head. Crack! crack! crack! came the sharp whip-like reports, and
man after man pushed his way, cursing, out of the mass, each
effectually disabled for the time, but not one mortally wounded so
far as Cyril could see.
“Mansfield never fired those shots!” was his mental comment,
as the number of his assailants continued to diminish, until only a
few remained on the ledge, making no attempt to molest him, but
looking about in bewilderment to see where the shots came from.
“Git!” said a stentorian voice which seemed to resound from
overhead, and the crestfallen pilgrims, grasping the meaning of the
monosyllable, embraced with thankfulness the permission accorded
them to retire. Once safely round the corner of the rock, they
collected their wounded and made their way down the hill. The
speaker—a lean, elderly man in white clothes and a pith helmet—
kept them covered with his revolver until they were out of sight,
then let himself lightly down to the path, and approached Cyril, who
had sunk on the ground in perilous proximity to the edge of the
precipice.
“Well, sir?” he asked slowly.
“I am infinitely indebted to you,” said Cyril, looking up with
difficulty as his rescuer reached him.
“Not you, sir,” was the prompt reply. “When I saw those
Scythian cusses preparing a new Holy Place for themselves by
conducting a Christian martyrdom on this spot, it struck me that
Scythia had quite as many Holy Places in this territory as was
healthy for her, so I just started in with my six-shooter right away.
You bet it went to my heart not to lay out two or three of the
fellows, and specially the reverend gentleman that took the rock for
a pulpit; but I know the ways of the Roumi authorities, and I didn’t
want my business interrupted by a judicial inquiry any more than
you would. But I guess there’s a dozen or so that will carry about
with ’em for some time a pleasing little souvenir of me, any way.”
While the stranger spoke, he had been helping Cyril gently back
to his former seat on the stone, and now began to bind up the
wound in his head with a handkerchief.
“Surely I know your voice?” said Cyril faintly. “It seems quite
familiar, and yet I can’t recall where I have heard it.”
The rescuer ceased his work, and stepped back for a moment.
“The same as ever!” he exclaimed in admiration. “Sir, I have many a
time heard you called the first gentleman in Europe, but I never
expected you would remember me, when the last deal we did
together was over twenty years ago.”
“Mr Hicks of the ‘Crier’?” asked Cyril, with an uncertain smile.
“Sir, you are correct. Elkanah B. Hicks, of the ‘Empire City Crier,’
who would be sitting in the head office of that paper as news editor
at this moment if he was not a fool. But he has got the wandering
strain in his blood, and threw up his berth to come out here, with
the excuse that it needed the best man the paper had got to fathom
you, Count.”
“I am flattered. Then it was not Turkish you spoke just now?”
“No, sir. I dispersed that crowd by means of the beautiful
language which is the common heritage of your nation and mine. Do
you find yourself comfortably fixed now, Count?”
He stepped back again to look critically at his work, just as
Mansfield, with blazing eyes and panting breath, charged down upon
the ledge, revolver in hand.
“Thank God you’re safe, sir!” he cried, with something like a
sob. “Where are the villains?”
“Hold him, Hicks!” cried Cyril feebly, as his secretary dashed
past him in the direction taken by the fugitives. “He is suffering from
the usual British malady, and yearns to go and kill something. He
isn’t safe.”
“Young man,” said Mr Hicks, flinging his sinewy arms round the
intending avenger, and holding him fast, “the bugle has sounded the
‘cease fire,’ and I guess you had better obey. Here’s your boss with a
broken arm and pretty near bleeding to death, and no doctor in this
forsaken locality but the one at the Scythian hospice. I reckon we
won’t requisition his services, but I shall want your help if I am to fix
things myself, old campaigner though I am. Give me that shooting-
iron for the present. Those things have a nasty trick of going off of
themselves when a young fellow is seeing red.”
Sobered by Mr Hicks’s speech, and very much ashamed of his
temporary madness, Mansfield surrendered his revolver, and
returned to Cyril’s side, feeling an irresistible inclination to choke.
“My dear youth, don’t be an idiot,” said Cyril, and the lump in
Mansfield’s throat vanished instantly. He even laughed, in a husky
and shame-faced manner.
“That’s better,” said Mr Hicks. “Take this chunk of wood, my
young friend, and split it in two, if you have a knife about you.” He
handed him one of the broken clubs with which the pilgrims had
been armed instead of the regulation staves, and Mansfield
succeeded in obtaining two fairly suitable pieces of wood, rounded
on one side and flat on the other. The surgeon continued to improve
the occasion even while the operation of setting the broken arm was
proceeding, talking meditatively as he worked, perhaps with the
benevolent intention of diverting the patient’s thoughts from what
was going on.
“Yes, young man, I like your face, and I guess I don’t object to
your grit; but you’ll have to learn how to take things. A week as a
special in war time would teach you a thing or two. What’s
happened to that kodak of yours, now? I saw you figuring around
with it while I was interviewing the old nigger who calls himself a
saint up there. You hurled it away, did you, just as if it was a rock?
and all the pictures with it that you had concluded to take home to
your best girl? Now what a wicked waste! Pull, pull harder; that’s
right. Keep cool, young man; the frozen deep is not a circumstance
to the coolness you want before you’ll make a good man at a pinch.”
With such cheerful counsels as these Mr Hicks lightened the
gloom of the painful process he had in hand, but Mansfield scarcely
heard them, in his anxiety for Cyril. At last the patient opened his
eyes and said, “Don’t be too hard on him, Hicks. He’s a good chap
all round.” The busy surgeon nodded.
“I guess I’d turn him out a better if I had him on the ‘Crier’
staff,” he said; but when the work was over, and Mansfield had gone
to fetch the servants, that they might lend their aid in carrying Cyril
down the path, Mr Hicks smiled confidentially at his patient.
“That young man has a heart of gold, sir, and worships your
very shadow. It’s not his fault that he hasn’t enjoyed my experience,
though it might have been awkward for you if I hadn’t chanced to be
wandering around in these parts. I guess, if you’ll allow me, that I’ll
fix my camp next to yours while you stay at Jericho. The wily
Scythian will find that it’s another story when he has to do business
with Elkanah B. Hicks.”
 CHAPTER XIII.
A GROUND OF HOPE.

Cyril’s troubles were by no means over when he had been carried

across the plain to Jericho, with infinite difficulty, upon a litter made
by tying branches together with handkerchiefs and turbans. His
Jewish host listened with a terrified countenance to the story of the
attack, and although he did not actually entreat his guests to quit his
roof, he expressed dismal apprehensions as to its safety if they
remained under its shelter. Finding that they did not take the hint,
he withdrew to lament the state of affairs with his family, if the
sounds of weeping and wailing that followed were to be accepted as
evidence. Mansfield was disposed to ridicule his conduct as the
result merely of constitutional cowardice, but Mr Hicks pointed out to
him the strong probability that the man’s fears were well founded. A
second band of pilgrims was expected that evening at the Scythian
hospice, and it was not in human nature that the morning’s
assailants, thus reinforced, should resist the temptation to wipe out
their defeat. That motive would be sufficient, even without the hope
of killing the man whom they regarded honestly and with full
conviction as Antichrist. Clearly there was no time to be lost, and
after a visit to the authorities, which resulted in their posting a
ragged and half-armed guard about the house, Mansfield started on
a hurried ride to Jerusalem to consult the Chevalier Goldberg’s
agent. It was with no small reluctance that he consented to leave
Cyril, even though Mr Hicks had sworn to fight in his defence until
the house fell in ruins around them. Still, not only the lives of the
party but the future of the Jewish cause hung upon this day’s
doings, and since Cyril was unable to decide upon the steps to be
taken, the Chevalier was the most suitable person to do so.
In the course of the night Mansfield returned, half-dead with
fatigue, but accompanied by an escort of soldiers, and provided with
full directions for the future. Cyril was to be carried in a mule-litter to
an estate belonging to the Chevalier at Urtas, some miles to the
south of Jerusalem, where he could remain in safety until he was
well again. The agent would send out furniture and provisions, and
see that the place was properly guarded, and neither the hostile
pilgrims nor the Jerusalem concession-hunters were to be allowed to
know where their victim had taken refuge. A rest of an hour or so
was all that was granted to Mansfield and the soldiers, for Cyril’s
host was on thorns to get him out of the house. Mr Hicks, who had
tacitly invited himself to remain in medical charge of the patient,
ordered a start soon after daybreak, and Mansfield and he heaved a
sigh of relief as they left the house, only less fervent than that of the
Hebrew who had succeeded in getting rid of them. The travellers
took the road to Jerusalem, but turned southwards before reaching
the city, and continued in that direction until they arrived at the
boundary of the Chevalier’s estate. Here the steward, at the head of
a well-armed body of gardeners and husbandmen, welcomed the
visitors in his master’s name, and the escort, their duty performed,
accepted a hearty meal and sundry presents, and returned to
Jerusalem.
Life at Urtas was at once business-like and unconventional. The
estate was practically a huge botanical garden, in which experiments
were made in acclimatising foreign plants and improving by scientific
cultivation the products of the country. The house was merely a
large native dwelling, of no great pretensions, but the agent had
sent out from Jerusalem a wealth of rich carpets, bright-hued
draperies, and luxurious cushions, together with the irreducible
minimum of European furniture, as represented by a shaky table and
four assorted chairs. His care had even gone so far as to provide a
Greek cook and a box of books, the latter principally French and
Italian novels of an unimproving tendency. During the first few days
Cyril was unable to do anything but recline upon the cushioned
divans and enjoy the Oriental luxury of his surroundings, but before
long the effect of the shock he had received passed away, together
with certain feverish symptoms which had alarmed Mr Hicks at
Jericho. Considerably before he could fairly be called convalescent he
was as busy as ever, although his broken arm forbade him to write
for himself. Every day the agent forwarded from Jerusalem a huge
pile of letters and telegrams, dealing with all the complicated issues
raised by the political situation, and Cyril dictated the answers from
his divan while Mansfield and Paschics, who had joined the party
from Jerusalem, took it in turns to write, and Mr Hicks lounged in
the verandah, looking in at the workers now and then with a
benevolent caution not to overdo things. When the letters were
finished, Paschics, who was less likely to be recognised than either
his colleague or the American, would ride with them to Jerusalem,
often bringing back a second instalment of correspondence with him
in the evening.
Nothing relating to the affairs of Zion could be settled without
Cyril’s advice, for the political barometer showed one of the curious
lulls which the wise in such matters consider to herald an
approaching storm. The Powers, cajoled, bribed, or threatened one
by one into submitting to the Jewish acquisition of Palestine, were
waiting, all dissatisfied but each reluctant to be the first to move, to
see what the Jews would do. At the New Year the control of the Holy
Places was to be handed over to the consular body, as representing
united Christendom, and the Roumi officials would give place to a
Jewish provisional government, under the suzerainty of the Grand
Seignior. The formation of this Cabinet, as it might be called, was
one of the most delicate tasks before the leaders of the movement.
In order to uphold the theory of representative institutions, dear to
the hearts of Dr Koepfle and his school, it was necessary that the
members should be formally elected by the Children of Zion
throughout the world, voting according to their “tents” or lodges.
Whether representative institutions stood or fell, however, it was
obviously indispensable that the persons chosen should not be
obnoxious to the Powers, and should be willing to maintain friendly,
even respectful, relations with the United Nation Syndicate. Cyril’s
Balkan experience had left him little to learn in the matter of
conducting an election from above, and it was to him that harassed
wire-pullers appealed in every difficulty. Frantic telegrams poured in
upon him when a “tent” refused steadily to vote for the candidate
recommended to it by headquarters, or when all the “tents” of one
country plumped for Dr Texelius, who was not one of the official
candidates, to the huge delight of the Anti-Semitic press, or when,
as happened in England, those Jews who were opposed to political
Zionism made a vigorous attempt to capture all the “tents” of the
country, with the view of electing a reactionary Cabinet. The wire-
pullers did not appeal in vain, and even Mr Hicks was moved to
admiration by Cyril’s strategy, giving it as his opinion that Tammany
could afford to learn a trick or two from Thracia.
The result of the election was to fill the prospective Cabinet with
men holding moderate views and willing to be guided; and if they
were virtually the nominees of Cyril and the Syndicate, this fact was
not likely to make the task of government less easy, but rather the
reverse. Cyril could not but be aware, although he gave no sign of
having perceived the fact, that to the Jews who were now crowding
into Palestine he was the Moses of this second Exodus. They were
coming, not with a wild rush, but in orderly bands, each family or
individual selected by the “tent” to which it or he belonged, and
allowed to start only when the necessary land had been secured in
Palestine. The genius of Dr Koepfle directed this migration with
almost mathematical accuracy; but Cyril’s name bulked far more
largely before the world than his, and there could be little doubt that
when the immigrants were invited to designate by means of a
plébiscite the man who should rule them, they would vote
unanimously for Count Mortimer.
But this consummation, however devoutly to be wished, was at
present merely in the clouds. The Constitution which was to be
administered by the provisional government had been drawn up by
the foremost Jewish jurists—which is almost equivalent to saying the
principal Continental lawyers—and had gone the round of the
Powers for approval and criticism. It guaranteed freedom of
conscience, freedom of trade, and every political blessing that the
human heart could in theory desire, to people of all creeds and all
nationalities, and yet the Powers were not satisfied, although no one
could suggest any improvement. The lowering state of the political
sky carried Cyril’s mind back to the days when Caerleon and he had
held the fort in Thracia, alone against Europe, and when the only
thing that saved them from annihilation was the mutual jealousy of
the Powers. “Nothing will succeed here but success,” he said to
himself, as he had said then. “While each of them is waiting to see
what the rest will do, we may pull the thing through.” And he chafed
the more under the physical weakness which kept him tied at Urtas,
when he might have been putting his fortune to the touch, and
gaining not only the position which his Jewish friends desired for
him, but also the happiness which up to this point he had contrived
to miss in his life.

Mansfield was very happy during this sojourn at Urtas. His work
was hard and the hours long, but he found time for a good deal of
out-door recreation. The agent had provided horses for the party, of
a very different type from the serviceable beasts which they had
procured for their journeys, and Mansfield loved all horses; while in
the estate and the model farm he found a whole world of delight.
The steward, a shrewd and ponderous Dutch Jew, told him when he
heard of his path in life that he was a good farmer spoilt, but
Mansfield was quite content to regard farming as merely a holiday
amusement. It would not bring him nearer to Philippa, which was
what he hoped his secretaryship would do.
Sometimes Mr Hicks would join him in his rides, and generally
on these occasions they went hunting, as the natives called it,
dignifying with this lofty name a little quail- and partridge-shooting,
for Mansfield drew the line at shooting a fox, much to the
disappointment of his attendants. It was on their return from one of
these rides that the American said casually—
“Say, Mr Mansfield, not come to any notion yet what your boss
has got on his mind, have you?”
“On his mind?” repeated Mansfield, in astonishment. “Nothing
more than the work and the political situation, I suppose.”
“I guess that would be about enough for most men,” said Mr
Hicks grimly; “but there’s something else wrong with him, He’s just
pining to make tracks from this place right now.”
“I haven’t noticed it,” said Mansfield, intending the remark as a
snub.
 “You bet your life you haven’t, Mr Mansfield. You weren’t meant
to.”
“But what is it?” Mansfield turned to face his tormentor; “and
how do you know anything about it?”
“Well, sir, if you saw a man fretting like a spirited horse to find
himself held fast in one place, and working all he knew to keep
himself from thinking, and all the time taking no proper pleasure in
his work or anything, what would be your opinion of that man?”
“He might be in fear of his life,”—this was intended to be
sarcastic; “or he might”—reluctantly—“be in love.”
“Sir, you have hit the very central point of the bull’s-eye. That’s
what’s wrong with the boss.”
“I don’t see that it concerns you if it is.”
“There’s no lady in Palestine that he might have been on his
way to interview?” continued Mr Hicks imperturbably.
“You mean that Queen—Queen Ernestine of Thracia?” asked
Mansfield blankly. Could it be possible that the moral problem Cyril
had propounded to him before leaving Ludwigsbad had been based
upon Cyril’s own experience?
“That’s my notion,” was the cheerful reply.
“But why wait so long, and go so far round?”
“Because he’s half ashamed of coming back to her anyhow, and
half of being so long about it,” said Mr Hicks concisely.
“I don’t see how you know that.”
“Sir, I was at Bellaviste when King Michael came of age. You bet
I made things hum in New York with my reports of the festivities,
and the other specials had to fly around to get even with me, but
when it came to Count Mortimer’s dismissal the ‘Crier’ fairly took the
cake. The hours I spent hanging around at that Palace, working up
all the ins and outs of the affair from the servants and minor
officials! But it paid, sir, it paid. I wrote up the incident for the paper
in my most elegant style—real high-toned dramatic situations, heart-
rending pathos, and all the rest. I tell you, Mr Mansfield, those
sheets were wet with the scalding tears of the most beautiful women
in America. The Four Hundred was divided; half the ladies took the
Queen’s side, and half the Count’s—and where will you find a
stronger testimony to the fairness with which I had done my work?
There wasn’t a likeness of either of ’em left in a single store from
one end of the Union to the other. And having gone into the case to
that extent, you tell me I’m not even in the ring!”
“By the bye,” said Mansfield, still impenitent, “what miles of
interviews you must be sending off to your paper every day now!”
“I am doing my duty to the ‘Crier,’ sir. I was sent out to keep an
eye on all the proceedings in this transfer of Palestine, in which my
country has as large an interest as yours, and I am informed that all
the Churches in the States are subscribing to the paper since my
descriptive articles on the crisis started to appear. There’s not a half-
starved home missionary or a New Rush school-ma’am out West but
cherishes the hope of seeing Palestine before sending in their checks
at last, and they all calculate to have a share in the country. We are
giving ’em what they want—not a move in this high political game
but they hear of it, and if intelligent interest was allowed any weight,
the territory would be ours. But since it’s not likely that your played-
out old Powers will conclude to appoint America the guardian of
Palestine, as they ought to do if they want the property developed to
any extent, why, I am booming your boss all I know. When the pinch
comes, the great American nation will hurl itself solid on the side of
Cyril de B. Mortimer, and it would not surprise me if he took his
stand under the fostering wings of the American eagle. He knows
who are his friends, and would as lief do a deal with ’em in a friendly
spirit as not. He gives me an item or two most every day for my
paper, and is ready all the time to favour me with his opinions,—not
like some of your fine old crusted diplomats, who wouldn’t open
their mouths to save their lives. Now there was Sir Dugald Haigh, a
real petrified old chunk of British oak, no less. I was in Ethiopia for
the paper at the time of his Mission, close upon fifteen years ago
now, and not a word to be got out of any of ’em. Kept me fooling
around the servants’ quarters, trying to find out what they were
doing, and wasting my valuable time. Well, there’s something
mysterious about these things, any way——”
“Well?” asked Mansfield, for Mr Hicks had paused darkly.
“Well, sir, that Mission was next door to a failure.”
 “Perhaps that was not altogether the fault of the Ethiopians,
was it?”
“Mr Mansfield, I guess I’m a white man. You don’t find me
taking sides with niggers against my own colour. No, sir. The fat was
just saved by Mr Stratford, the second in command (he’s Sir Egerton
now and your Ambassador at Czarigrad), who snatched it out of the
fire when we were all making our wills, but Sir Dugald had no hand
in it. And now, instead of prancing around in a coronet and ermine
robes in the House of Lords, that old man is buried up in Scotland
somewhere, cultivating oatmeal and a little literature—that is to say,
he makes himself a general nuisance by writing to the ‘Times’ when
there’s any question on hand connected with foreign politics.”
“Well?” asked Mansfield again.
“Well, sir, the boss is not that sort. He knows where the pay-dirt
lies, as I said, and things will pan out as he means ’em to. If he
concludes that he didn’t treat the lady you mentioned handsomely,
he may go back to her, but if he does, it’ll be because it suits his
book.”
“Look here,” said Mansfield, “if you go on making these vile
insinuations against him any more, you and I shall quarrel.”
“You bet!” was the unsympathetic reply. “No, sir, when a man
finds himself able to hitch his conscience and his convenience to his
waggon together, all that the public can do is to admire his team.
Why it should turn ugly and make nasty remarks on the harness I
don’t know, and you won’t find me doing it.”
Mr Hicks swung himself off his horse as he spoke, with the air of
one who dismissed the subject, for they had ridden up to the house,
but Mansfield had been too much disturbed by the new ideas
suggested to him to be able to banish the conversation from his
mind. When work was over that evening, instead of going out as
usual for a second ride, he hung about the room in which he had
been writing at Cyril’s dictation, alternately rearranging his papers
and trying to place Cyril’s cushions more comfortably.
“Well, Mansfield, what is it?” asked his employer at last.
“I thought—I didn’t know—it occurred to me that you might
want a message taken to—to some other part of the country, as you
are tied here,” stammered Mansfield.
“You are very considerate. A message to whom?”
“To the—to some one you were particularly anxious to see.”
“Come, Mansfield, out with it! Who is this mysterious person?
Has Hicks been pulling your leg?”
“I knew he had made it all up!” burst joyfully from Mansfield.
“All what? I am afraid not. Did he tell you that I was on my way
to ask for an interview with Queen Ernestine, when the pilgrims
interfered with my plans?”
“Yes, but I didn’t believe him.”
“Cultivate a more credulous spirit. What he told you was
perfectly true, and so was his further information that this delay is
almost intolerable to me.”
“I’ll start to-night,” said Mansfield, reproaching himself deeply.
“You can do nothing, unfortunately. I must see the Queen
myself, and approach her in forma pauperis. You know that I treated
her shamefully?”
“No. You can’t make me believe that.”
“But it is true, you see. King Michael behaved to her badly
enough, but it was not that which drove her into exile in Syria. She
would have gone with me cheerfully to poverty and obscurity in
England, but I would not take her. She entreated me on her knees,
but I refused to listen.”
Cyril spoke in a hard, even voice, and when he ceased there
was silence in the room. Mansfield tried in vain to think of something
to say, and each moment made the silence harder to interrupt. “I
would never have believed it if any one else had told me,” he
groaned at last, breaking the spell with a mighty effort.
“I knew that. You and I have taken a fancy to one another,
Mansfield, and I was curious to see what you would say when you
knew how I had treated the woman——”
“Who loved you,” supplied Mansfield, in a tone which was at
once harsh and dull.
“And whom I loved.”
There was a further silence, then Mansfield came hesitatingly
forward.
 “I can’t help it,” he said. “I should never have thought I could
speak civilly to a man who had done such a thing as that, but—it’s
you.”
“My dear Mansfield!” The reaction from the strained feeling of
the moment before forced a smile from Cyril. Mansfield sitting in
judgment upon him, and allowing his just severity to be biassed by
his affection for the culprit, was very funny. “You hate the sin, but
you have a sneaking kindness left for the sinner, eh?”
Mansfield laughed uncomfortably, and Cyril shook his head.
“I am afraid I shall have to send you back to England,
Mansfield. You must be deteriorating horribly, if you can condone
such a departure from your creed, even in my case. I suppose I
have corrupted you. What would Lady Phil say?”
“I shall never tell her. It would make her too miserable—about
you, I mean. But, Count——”
“Go on. I will relieve your wounded feelings in any way I can.”
“You were intending to—to try and get the Queen to be
reconciled?”
“Before there was any idea of its being to my advantage? Yes.”
“And you mean to do it still? You think she will forgive you?”
“The woman I used to know would forgive me. But suppose she
is changed? I have no right to expect anything else, and I have only
myself to thank. There is just one thing——”
“Yes?” said Mansfield eagerly.
“Some time ago I was shown a photograph of her, taken since
she left Europe. The woman who showed it to me would have been
the last person in the world to wish to give me any hope, but she did
not see the significance of what I noticed. On the Queen’s arm there
was a bracelet——”
“Which you had given her?”
“Not quite. Prince Mirkovics’s daughter, one of her Hofdamen,
gave it to her once at Christmas. It had one very large diamond in it,
and to the uninitiated that was all. But the diamond was so cut that
by looking at it at a certain angle you could see a portrait in the
setting behind it. The Queen was delighted.”
“And it was your portrait? and she was wearing it still?”
 “She was wearing it still. That is my sole ground of hope. But
why I should be pouring out my sorrows to you in this way, like
young Werther or the celebrated Mr Rochester, I don’t know. It isn’t
for a warning, because I can’t by any stretch of imagination conceive
you to be in need of it, and it certainly isn’t because I was yearning
for a confidant. It must have been simply your astonishing cheek in
leading up to the subject. Well, now your idol is broken, and I hope
you are pleased.”
“I can’t think what made me do it,” said Mansfield, awkwardly.
“I know I must seem disgustingly inquisitive to you, but I only
wanted to—to——”
“To annihilate time and space for my benefit, I know. Well, don’t
distress yourself. I could have shut you up at any moment I chose.
As I said, I wished to see whether you would quite turn your back
upon me when you knew the whole truth.”
“I could never do that, whatever happened. Try me.”
“I believe you. And now, if you have probed into my past history
sufficiently, perhaps you would not mind going round to the
steward’s and seeing what he has to say about the mule-litter that
Hicks mentioned this morning?”
Mr Hicks himself entered the room as Mansfield stumbled out of
it, and cast a glance of quizzical reproof at Cyril as he sat down on
the divan.
“I’d lay my last red cent, Count, that you’ve been tormenting
that unhappy young man again. The way you work upon his finer
feelings is the cruellest thing I ever saw. You play upon him like an
organ.”
“Then why does he lend himself to it?” asked Cyril. “It’s not in
human nature to neglect such an opportunity. The luckless youth is
provokingly sane otherwise. My brother values his opinion, my
nephew and niece look up to him devoutly; I believe he even fancies
himself a little as a man of the world. Why should he take it into his
head to conceive such an adoration for me that he becomes like a
child in my hands? I can make him blush and stammer like a girl,
and for no reason whatever.”
“He don’t get much show out of his adoration, sir, any way.”
 “No, indeed; and yet he keeps it up. Why does a woman
torment her lovers, Hicks? To show her power, I suppose—not
necessarily because she delights in seeing them miserable. It gives
me a kind of pleasure, no doubt, to know that I can raise the
unfortunate Mansfield from despair to the seventh heaven by a
word, and plunge him down into the depths again by another, and
therefore I do it.”
“Guess you are keeping your hand in, Count, against the time
they fix you up with a whole territory to practise your fascinations
upon.”
“Don’t dabble in prophecy, Hicks, unless you want to postpone
that desirable time until the Greek Kalends. So poor Mansfield is
tortured to make a pastime for me, is he? Well, it will be all made up
to him. I intend him to marry my niece, and she takes after her
father, and could not hurt any one’s feelings in cold blood to save
her life.”
“Is that so, Count? Well, Mr Mansfield will have earned his
happiness,” said Mr Hicks drily. “But I guess you know some folks
have figured it out that the young lady is to marry the King of
Thracia? Old Prince Mirkovics is flying round putting the kingdom in
order, and whispering the secret to most every one he meets. You
are not in it, then?”
“Scarcely. For one thing, I don’t think my niece would come into
the scheme, and I am not so foolish as to undertake to marry her to
any one against her will. And then, you see, I am retained, as I said,
in Mansfield’s behalf.”
 CHAPTER XIV.
NO PLACE OF REPENTANCE.

The sojourn at Urtas, which had proved so irksome to Cyril, was not
doomed to last much longer. As soon as the watchful Mr Hicks could
be induced, against his better judgment, to allow him to travel, he
was on the road again, riding whenever it was possible. When the
country was so rough as to render horse exercise unsafe for a rider
able only to use one hand, he was content to be conveyed
ignominiously in the mule-litter. In his train followed Mr Hicks, acting
both as surgeon and chronicler. Cyril was well pleased to keep the
American supplied with exclusive information on points of general
interest, since he found him prepared to exercise a wise discretion
with regard to matters of real importance. Mr Hicks asked no more
favourable treatment than this. He had been sent out to write up the
Palestine question for the ‘Crier,’ and how could he do so better than
by encamping continually, so to speak, close to the fountainhead of
information on the subject? His retinue, added to Cyril’s, made an
imposing cavalcade, and the local governors and petty sheikhs
honoured with a visit were duly impressed.
The minds of these functionaries were found to be much
perturbed, owing to the reports which had been spread as to the
intentions of the new government, and it was sometimes a long
business to reassure them. Curiously enough, the worst and most
malevolent of the mischief-makers were the Jews whose families had
been settled in the larger towns for two or more generations.
Supported in idleness by means of the Chalukah—a kind of voluntary
tax which the Jews throughout the world imposed on themselves for
the benefit of their poor brethren in Palestine—these men, quite
naturally, were fully satisfied with the present. The prospect of a
future in which their pretensions would be examined and their
privileges curtailed was not enticing. Hard work in stubborn soil,
even on land which was their own, would be a poor exchange for
ease and idleness, and these degenerate Israelites did their best to
avert it by inciting the Moslems to resist the change of rule. Calumny
after calumny was brought forward by the local authorities, and
refuted by Cyril, who made his way to the hardest hearts by dint of a
judicious combination of bonhomie and bakhshish. It is true that the
natives, having seen the colour of his money, and heard of the
liberty and other blessings in store for them, chose to ignore the
existence of the Jewish State altogether. However, since they
accepted all Cyril’s suggestions, and agreed to pay their taxes to the
officials whom he should appoint, their belief that England was
about to take possession of the country, and had sent him in
advance as her representative, mattered little.
Owing to the singular success of his labours, Count Mortimer’s
journey through the country bore the aspect of a triumphal progress.
When he arrived at length at Damascus, there remained only the
Beni Ismail and their Desert Queen to be placated before he could
announce that the whole Moslem population of Palestine was well
affected towards the new rule. To gain the goodwill of the Christians
was a hopeless task, he knew; but at this moment they were all fully
occupied in intriguing, with the support of the consuls of the Powers
who protected them respectively, for the aggrandisement of their
property or prestige at the expense of rival sects. Even Bishop
Philaret had forgotten the iniquities of the Jews for a time, and was
so hotly engaged in a controversy with the Latins over a piece of
ground some seven feet square, in which a ruined cistern (which he
imagined to be a tomb) had been discovered, that he had no leisure
to waste in attacking Cyril.
As the travellers approached Damascus, it seemed to Mansfield
and Mr Hicks that their pace was faster than it had been at first.
Cyril had become more impatient of delay, less tolerant of any
proposal to digress from the appointed route for the purpose of
visiting some object of interest. They could see that his spirits were
variable, in spite of the rigid self-control which he exercised, and his
physician discovered that for the first time in his life he slept badly
night after night. When they reached the city, however, and had
taken up their quarters in the house of an Oriental cousin of the
Chevalier’s, he was calm and cheerful again. On the first evening of
their stay he was the life of the party, which included a cheerful
young Roumi aide-de-camp of the Vali or Governor-General, who
was the bearer of his superior’s respects and compliments. When the
story of their journeys had been told, Mahmud Fadil Bey had a good
deal to say about the one task that remained to be completed.
“We are all anxious to see how you get on with the Beni Ismail,”
he said, in his excellent French. “They have been a thorn in our side
for many a day, and we shall not be sorry to turn them over to you.”
“What is their peculiar wickedness?” asked Cyril.
Mahmud Fadil shrugged his shoulders. “They are simply an Arab
tribe who inhabit a tract of desert of which almost nothing is known,
and who make themselves rather more disagreeable than the rest.
Of course they have never paid any tribute—though our treasury
officials devised a pleasing fiction that the arrears had been
accumulating for centuries. It was practically a case of our paying
tribute to them. When the usual presents were not forthcoming, it
was not long before we heard that the Beni Ismail had robbed a
caravan or two. It was no use sending soldiers after them, for they
knew the desert and we did not, so we lay low and said nothing.” He
glanced smilingly at Mr Hicks, as he made the quotation in English.
“Two years ago there was a famine, and I suppose caravans became
scarce. At any rate, the Beni Ismail were foolish enough to wander
close to the city in search of food, and the Vali saw his opportunity.
He drew a cordon of troops round their encampment, and arrested
them for non-payment of their taxes. We had very nearly the whole
tribe in our hands, and it was intended to deport them to some
other part of the country, where they would be absolutely at the
mercy of the Government. But, somehow or other, they managed to
pay up, though I will do the Vali the justice to say that he did not
diminish the sum he had named by a single piastre. This tardy virtue
was all very well; but he had no intention of leaving the tribe at
liberty to begin their old game again, and the preparations for
removing them were going forward, when—of all people—the
Pannonian Ambassador at Czarigrad took up the affair. It was said
that the Empress of Pannonia was interesting herself in the
creatures, though why she should I don’t know, but we were obliged
to let them go, on the understanding that the taxes should be paid
in future, and the attacks on caravans cease. Wonderful to relate,
they have kept their promise, thanks, I suppose, to their Queen,
whom no one had ever heard of before they got into trouble. It
seems that she holds her Court at some spot in the desert that the
Arabs call Sitt Zeynab. She had been wise enough to keep out of our
reach, and we restored her subjects to her.”
“Do you mean that the lady’s existence had been absolutely
unsuspected?” asked Cyril.
“Absolutely. It was supposed that the tribe were ashamed to
confess they were ruled by a woman, or perhaps afraid that we
should make a bold dash and secure her as a hostage. I believe the
idea of appealing to the Empress was hers, though it is a mystery
why she should hit upon Pannonia as the friend in need.”
“But has no one from Damascus ever seen her?”
“No one. Moreover, I have questioned different members of the
tribe, when they came to bring their tribute, since that time, and I
think very few of them have seen her either. I have been assured by
one man that she is ineffably old and practises magic, and by the
next that she is a perfect houri in youth and beauty. The most
credible thing I have heard is that she is always wrapped in a white
sheet, like the Druse ladies, that she is attended only by women,
and that no one has ever seen her face. The tribe speak of her as
the Great Princess, and her word is law. She is a splendid horse-
woman, and she lives in a haunted palace, and both these things
impress them very much.”
“Is that so, sir?” said Mr Hicks. “And why do you expect this
interesting female to come to blows with his Excellency, if I may
ask?”
Mahmud Fadil laughed. “I am afraid we are to blame for that.
When the last tribute came in, the Vali told the messengers that they
might think themselves independent if they liked, but let them wait
until the Prince of the Jews came, and see what all the Emperors in
Europe could do for them then! They asked innumerable questions,
and got all the information of the same kind we could give them,
and retired to tell their Princess, saying that she would know what to
do.”
“I think this will involve a visit to her Highness as soon as we
have had two or three days’ rest and a look at Lebanon,” said Cyril.
“I hardly think you will get as far as Sitt Zeynab,” laughed the
aide-de-camp. “No one has ever yet reached it from Damascus,
though many have tried, some out of curiosity, and some for other
reasons. The Beni Ismail alone among the Arabs know the way, and
they will never take any one there. Once or twice we have caught
one of the tribe off his guard, and forced him to take charge of an
exploring party, but the explorers have always returned unsuccessful
and without their guide, after wandering very uncomfortably in the
desert for a few days. It is difficult to see how the place can be
reached. We have offered a reward to the Beni Ayub, a rival tribe, if
they will find out the way to it, but whenever the Beni Ismail
discover trespassers in their country, they cut their trespassing
severely short. The town does not seem to have been visited by any
traveller, and the other Arabs cannot even say how long the Queen
has reigned.”
“Decidedly we must face these perils and make a dash for Sitt
Zeynab,” repeated Cyril; “but I intend to spend to-morrow in
exploring Anti-Lebanon.”

When the next day arrived, however, Mr Hicks came into

Mansfield’s room early in the morning, and roused him
unceremoniously from a sound sleep.
“Hullo! am I late?” asked the victim vaguely. “I’ll be down in a
minute. Does the Count want to start already?”
“I want you to start right now,” said Mr Hicks, “if you’re game to
do the boss a kindness at the risk of his turning ugly.”
“Of course I’ll do anything that wants doing,” said Mansfield,
yawning furiously.
“Well, the boss’s strength has just about petered out. This hard
travelling, and holding pow-wows with those old sinners all the time,
has been too much for him, considering he was dead set on getting
to his journey’s end right away. I looked in on him an hour back, at a
word from Dietrich, and found that he hadn’t slept a wink all night,
and was in something very like a fever. I took the liberty of giving
him a sleeping-mixture that will keep him quiet till the evening, you
bet. But if he starts riding up Mount Lebanon to-morrow, and finds
maybe that Queen Ernestine won’t see him at the end, it will about
settle his business. Now, what I want you to do is——”
“To go and see the Queen,” said Mansfield, sitting up in bed.
“If she will permit you; but I want you to go and prospect
around at Brutli, any way. If you are able to see her, start right in
and work on her feelings till she can’t see for crying. I incline to
think she will come down to him at once, but allowing for wounded
feelings and insulted dignity, we’ll conclude that she only sends a
message to invite him up there. But even if you can’t see her, you
can find out when she walks out and where, so that we may bring
him face to face with her suddenly. Don’t give the boss away, of
course. To every one but the Queen you’re a tourist wishing to
inspect the Institution, and my darkey, who knows the country, shall
go with you for a guide.”
“All right. I’m your man.” The words followed Mr Hicks as he left
the room, and another hour saw Mansfield set forth on his embassy.
The Citadel, the Seraglio, and the bridge over the Barada left behind,
the route lay for a while along a broad, poplar-bordered road, on
either side of which were white houses set in green gardens. This
pleasant shade came to an end at the foot of the hills, and the rest
of the journey presented itself as a hot and weary climb up steep
mountain-paths, the monotony of which was only occasionally
relieved by a grove of myrtles, or a happy valley with its terraced
sides covered with vineyards and mulberry-trees. The interest which
he took in his mission armed Mansfield against fatigue, and he
clattered at a dangerous pace down slippery paths, and dismounted
to lead his horse up steep ascents, with a dogged persistence which
did not commend itself to Mr Hicks’s elderly servant, who was
irreverently known as Uncle Sam. Two or three brief halts,
undertaken purely for the sake of the horses, failed to mollify Uncle
Sam, and when the travellers rode into the village of Brutli, only to
behold the Deaconesses’ Institution towering above them at the
head of a further long ascent, his feelings overcame him.
Approaching Mansfield, he hinted darkly that the consequences
would probably be serious for both of them if they did not pause and
lunch, in view of the early hour at which they had started. Mansfield
acquiesced reluctantly, and they asked their way to the inn, which
proved to be a more imposing building than those in the other
villages they had passed. The reason for this superiority was
revealed when the landlord explained with much pride that two
gentlemen and several servants belonging to the household of the
Queen of Thracia had occupied his best rooms for more than two
years past, and that this gratifying fact had obliged him to increase
his accommodation for visitors. He pointed, as he spoke, to a
pleasant vine-shaded verandah on the opposite side of the
courtyard, in which a table was set out in European fashion. A tall
thin man had just taken his seat, and a second European, stout and
elderly, was standing at the edge of the verandah, peering across
the yard into the darkness of the archway in which Mansfield stood.
The landlord, with a hurried apology, hastened towards him, to
return in a moment beaming with smiles, and bearing a request
from the Thracian gentlemen that the English traveller would share
their meal. Delighted to find his path made so smooth, Mansfield
crossed the courtyard, to be met by the short man at the foot of the
verandah-steps, and received with flattering assurances of welcome.
“I am ashamed to intrude upon you in this way,” began the
guest.
“Intrude, monsieur! The sight of you is a perfect feast for our
eyes,” was the reply, in very rapid French. “We rejoice to greet one
of your nation. Once we regarded all Englishmen as our friends, now
there is an exception”—the thin man at the table growled indistinctly
—“but there is no need to proscribe a whole people for the fault of
one man. Let me present to you General Banics, formerly governor
to his Majesty the King of Thracia, now master of the household to
her Majesty Queen Ernestine. General, pray do me a similar
kindness.”
“Monsieur,” growled the General, “permit me to present to you
M. Peter Stefanovics, grand chamberlain to her Majesty. The coffee