The King's coming : a story of the happy end

Front matter

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Chapter I

HATEAU MONSTOIR quivered from roof to basement. Across the vale against Beau le Due hilltop burst a half-ton shell with terrific detonation!

“They come! they come!” cried the aged Baron d’Estanger huskily, glancing quickly at the grave, white faces about the breakfast table.

For a brief three seconds there was fearful stillness. A thrush on the windowsill sounded a subdued note of alarm and listened. Mimi’s kitten toyed with a sunbeam that strayed through the lattice.

Then boomed the reply, shaking the earth and filling the air with a rude, grating echo !

“It’s the end!” shouted Marie d’Estanger, as the family group, excited and trembling, sprang to their feet. “It’s the beginning of the end ! ” she concluded with abated breath.

The old Frenchman looked into the face of his beautiful daughter of twenty years, and was surprised at the expression and concern that flushed her delicate features.

“We go, child,” he said hoarsely.

“No, Pere, I stay ”

“Oh ! Marie ! then you and I ”

“Yes, yes, I stay. Perhaps my mission has come.”

Marie’s mother seized her and dragged her away. The household ran screaming, searching for wraps and personal belongings.

“We must all go, Marie,” said her mother firmly, for she well knew Marie’s conviction that one day the Voices would send her on a mission.

“No, no, ma cherie,” answered Marie, gently freeing herself from her mother’s grasp. “ I stay. My Voices have told me to stay and wait.”

“Marie, please ”

“No, I cannot. Yonder cannon announces the beginning- of the regeneration of Europe and the changing and cleansing of the world. I stay, and await my Lord’s ”

A howitzer’s missile of ten hundredweight tore a wide gap through the ivy-clad chateau ! Out of the fog of plaster dust, mother and three daughters emerged, panic-stricken — except Marie, who walked calmly to the center of the garden and surveyed the horizon !

Mother and sisters and servants ran to the upper road on the mountain, believing Marie to be with them. But when they looked back down the steep incline and saw her still bareheaded in the garden, they turned to bring her away by force, when an avalanche of fleeing refugees swept them onward and away forever !

Then Marie perceived her gray-haired father standing far out on the highest battlement of the ancient chateau, waving a rusty sword of 1870, and shouting to the advancing column of baggy-trousered soldiers: "Vwe la France! *’

Multitudes of spiked Helmets forged forward from the other side to attack. Already, at close range, long double lines of thin bluish blazes shot from rifle muzzles. From the highest ground above the valley, hundreds of monster guns, mortars, and howitzers belched tons of steel and explosives, which ripped up trees and dug caverns in the hills. In the deadly undertone was the sputtering, metallic rattle of machine guns, foe answering foe and mowing down the young manhood of nations !

The Great World War was on, and all along the borders of France and Belgium that sunny summer morning, civilization and Christianity, insulted and cast aside, beheld the opening onslaught of the Armageddon of accumulated centuries. The old r%ime had begun to pass.

Undaunted, the Baron on the housetop and the tender girl, in fluttering white frock, in the garden, stood and gazed on the spectacle of astounding horror and enormity.

Flames darted from the dormer windows, enveloping the feet of the aged man with wreaths of black smoke, but still the rusty saber directed the charge of the defenders of Liberty. His deep, stentorian voice sounded orders to the lancers and gunners.

Then a whizzing gleam in the sunlight, and a deafening explosion. Chateau Monstoir, struck squarely by a ponderous shell, crumbled in ruins. Marie saw the mangled form of her brave father thrown fifty feet in mid-air and shredded into atoms !

But, pale and overwrought, with tears streaming, she took up his role, crying:

Immediately a ten-ton boulder from the overhanging bluff scoured an ugly path through the garden ; crushing shrubs and roses at her very feet. The wind of its passing, threw her in a heap into a hole in the dense hedge.

Amazed and stunned, the lone girl looked out to see the French beginning to retreat and swarms of stalwart, stolid, dirt-begrimed Germans, clambering over the garden wall — they were Von Kluck’s hordes, pushing, shoving, shouting, crowding, mashing, and blasting their way towards Paris !

Marie shuddered. Crouching close to the earth, she clutched the knotted hedge roots, hardly daring to breathe. Twice the heavy, hobnailed boots of giant Bavarians tread on her skirts. She could hear the soldiers’ deep breathing as they stumbled and ran under iron orders of the dominant autocracy at Potsdam.

All day and far into the starless night, the weary tramp, tramp continued. Distant firing became more and more muffled, but the rumbling, sickening roll of death was no less terrible. Marie lay cramped and cold, not quite out of the enemy’s path, for now and again a straggler stumbled over her aching limbs. "^Then from sheer exhaustion she slept.

Morning poured a golden flood over the rifts and craters in plain and hilltop as though there had not been a human, steel-armed tornado yesterday. Marie d’Estanger crawled to the open and rubbed stiff joints that she might stand. Memory came slowly as she gazed upon the wreckage of war. The wake mounted skyward in jagged, blood-stained piles of earth and rocks, and between dipped dark abysses that yawned for half burnt bodies of horses and severed trunks of men,

Marie lifted up her hands to heaven, saying aloud :

“Thy will, Lord. Here I wait for my mission.”

The Chateau Monstoir lay before her, scattered and strewn about the garden, except the basement. It had been the seat of her forefathers for seven generations. In the time of the early wars, its site of four acres, in low depression, surrounded by irregular, steep, thickly wooded hills, had been selected for secluded safety for the women and children. Scarcely approachable, except by a hidden roadway, after the cavalcade of wholesale destruction had passed, no man would care to descend to the four-acre plot. Even a mountain goat, looking down from a projecting crag, might hesitate to attempt the perilous trip below.

Nevertheless, Marie would stay on to wait for her bidding. She dried her tears and walked slowly through the garden to her Retreat for Prayer.

Its bower of vines, tangled with red ramblers, had not been injured. There, since childhood, she had come daily to pray and be instructed and soothed by the Voices. There was the spring, too, still spared to bubble up, clear and sparkling, and run off in a laughing streamlet to the fishpond. And lo ! there were also her two pet white doves, fluttering to her outstretched hands.

“Oh, Peter and John! You here with poor Marie!”

She kissed each little head, and hurried into the Retreat to pray.

There she knelt long under the canopy of green, petitioning God with great fervor to enlarge her faith to abide His Will. As ever before, she experienced the same comforting presence, and believed the Voices whispered: “Not now; wait yet awhile.”

Her patient, trusting spirit was thus refreshed. She made the sign of the cross, and came forth in the sunlight to brave alone her vigil and be ready for His Call. With one perfectly shaped hand, she shielded her eyes, and gazed longingly towards the way whither

ll her mother had gone. This look was dimmed by tears and ended in a vacant stare. Gradually her eyes wandered over the havoc wrought upon the landscape of the rugged green hills, and she sobbed as she turned away to go to the shattered chateau.

In her sorrow and sadness, there was not the slightest trace of dismay. She had been bred of the same stern stuff that caused the old Baron, her father, to stand on the battlement, and die leading the legions to fight for Liberty. And there was her mission yet to come. So she stifled her sobs, and faced about as a brave soldier on parade.

The borders of France could not boast of a more beautiful girl than Marie d’Estanger. She was of medium height, plump and healthy, and formed like the fair goddesses of ancient Greece. She stood firmly in her tiny slippers. Her fine, sensitively curved mouth, with the merest suggestion of sadness, was exquisitely sweet. The world and its manifold beauties and contradictions came to her through soft brown, loving eyes that seemed to behold heavenly things only — but here, again, her conviction of having a mission in life, adapted those wonderful eyes for womanly power. A wealth of raven hair hung flowing about her shoulders. Her face was oval and perfect, in artistic contour, as if modeled by the great sculptors of the Virgin Mary. There was about her a refined grace and splendor that made her both queen and angel wherever she might go, — and God had fashioned her for a real purpose.

From early childhood, this pretty, wonderfully endowed Marie d’Estanger declared she had come into the world on a special mission for Christ. No one could persuade her out of this idee fixe. Her father wished to educate her with her sisters, in Paris. They went, but Marie had a governess and a master at Chateau Monstoir. No girl was better educated or better read than Marie; yet of the outside world, from personal contact, she knew nothing.

And she stayed on -at the razed chateau throughout the horrible World War. Fragments of armies came and went on the plains above, but no wanderer drew near. In the basement of the ruins, the vast family stores escaped destruction. With these, and fruits from the garden, and such as she raised by tilling the soil, she managed to live entirely alone for years, except for the two snow-white doves. She and the doves were still there when the final battles of conquest were fought. And once more, in those last days, while Marie prayed in the Retreat, fusillades of shell rained over the hills and some fell into the garden.

However, regardless of the battalions of weather-stained, battered veterans, scurrying over the wild, bomb-plowed plateau above, she prayed on at the close of day. Darkness shrouded her about, but she prayed on with increased zeal. While she thus remained steadfast in supplication, there was opened a curtain, as it were, in the mist, and there appeared a holy Vision. Marie was not afraid. She looked on in calm wonder and rejoiced that the hour of her instruction had come.

An angel of light, whose countenance seemed to smile out of the throne of heaven, and whose raiment glowed with gems of Paradisc, advanced from the holy cortege, and said

“You are Marie, descended from the family of Joan of Arc?”

“Yes, yes!”

“And verily you have heard and believed your Voices?”

“Yes,” she said again, and her face caught the filmy radiance of the Vision.

Then proclaimed the angel of the sacred company :

“You, Marie d’Estanger, are the Messenger of Christ to the peoples of the earth. You shall go forth quickly and prepare the way. Lo, His Second Coming is at hand. He will appear now to judge the living and the dead, and separate the gold from the dross. The Great World War, just ending, is the sign of the Beginning of Sorrows referred to on the Mount of Olives.

“Recall, Marie, the true record by St. Matthew :

“ ‘And as he sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying: tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world?

'And Jesus answered and said unto them:

'Take heed that no man deceive you, , , ,

And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars. , , ,

'And all these things must come to pass.

. . , For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be famines and pestilenceis, and earthquakes in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows,

'And the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels, then shall He sit upon His Throne of Glory, And before him shall be gathered all nations; and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats? '' And Marie, her face ablaze with gladness, was impatient to speak, and cried, falling at the angel’s feet :

‘I know it ! I know it. How well do I know it! I believe! Oh, I believe! St. Luke has also written of how He will come again in glory :

'"And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars: and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming upon the earth for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.

I

‘And then shall they see The Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.’ ”

The chief angel of the holy Vision then commanded Marie to stand and receive the blessings from the Most High God.

Afterward he said :

“You are the Messenger before His Coming. Over yonder hill, three just men draw near. These you may choose for your aides, but Jesus sends you only. Speak with them and permit them to follow you.”

Marie stood expecting more, but the Vision dimmed and no light was discernible. She came out into the night, filled with the sanctity of what she had seen and heard.

Three holy and just men did approach the dale. But German, French and American shells were not respectors of God or man, and as the group would have descended, two of these steel monstrosities exploded at their feet, killing them at once.

There also came to the brow of the ridge three other men who were wise and powerful, but dark and evil in their ways. They looked behind them furtively, as if being chased. Regardless of the dangerous declivity ahead, they destroyed some papers, and ran pell-mell down to the tumbled chateau to seek a hiding place.

Chapter II

D O ONE followed the fugitives. In fact, they were not being chased, and might have come into Monstoir garden like orderly gentlemen, instead of rushing in, breathless and wild-eyed. Their pursuers mistook the destruction of the three just men for a well-deserved death for three escaped rogues, and turned back glad to have been relieved of a most unpleasant task.

“I guess we’re safe in this Garden of Eden,” said the largest man, throwing off his cares with a full-chested “Phew!”

The other two glanced around at the neatness of things and shrugged their shoulders.

A round moon glided from behind a cloud and filled the basin with soft light.

"Ah! Messieurs, vous voilaT exclaimed Marie, coming out joyfully to receive her supposed aides.

“Wee, Madmasell!” replied the big man with amused emphasis.

“Ah!” English!” cried Marie in that language, and came closer to the wayfarers who, now amazed at finding a beautiful young woman, neatly attired in white, were standing in a row with hats in hand.

“Nope, Miss; I’m American; that short guy is English; and this big, stocky devil is a Jew.”

“Three nationalities, come in the name of the Almighty God to be my aides.”

The American cleared his throat.

“I knew you were coming. An angel just now told me, and I was waiting — I heard you coming down the side there, but the moon was not out then and I could not see.”

“Thank God !” said the Englishman, intending the remark as a bit of dry wit.

“The poor child is clean off, Ike,” said the American aside to the Jew.

“And your names, gentlemen, may I have the honor?”

The American stammered an apology, cast s aside his slang, for he was — had been a university man, — and bowing low, said :

“Miss Miss ”

“Marie d’Estanger I’m sorry, sir.”

“Miss d’Estanger, this gentleman is an Englishman and his name is Delwynn Stoddard. This is Isaac Eppstein, and my name is Joseph Bolinbroke,”

The three had not heard their real names for so long that the calling of them sounded like an accusation from a ghost.

Marie bowed herself, expressing her thanks, and kneeling down in the silvery moonlight, prayed aloud to God, in clear, musical tones of joy, telling Him how grateful she was for the three aides He had sent. Then, one by one, she called their names, and begged God to bless them and give each of them special grace and strength of character to uphold her arm in her journeys.

The Jew coughed repeatedly; the Englishman had much trouble with his nose; and the American had lost some valuable — and did not remember whether he put it in trouser pockets, coat pockets, waistcoat, or the lining of his hat

— for he searched all thoroughly without success.

Marie sprang up lightly, brushed back from her brow the silken locks that fluttered playfully in the night breeze, and said ;

“Come, Aides, — ^you must be hungry. Immediately the angel told me of your coming, I hastened to prepare the best dinner my lean stores admit.”

She took Eppstein and Stoddard by their hands and led them away. “Come, Mr. Bolinbroke,” she called, and the tall, dumbfounded American walked along after his late partners in crime.

“My chateau is not what it was, as you can easily see,” she chatted on. “It has been a grand home of the d’Estangers for seven generations, but at the beginning of the war, it was leveled in a battle fought on the Heights — we being between fire here. Since then I have lived on alone in the basement rooms spared me, with food, to tarry until God came to-night to appoint my mission — and for you, my Aides, to come.”

“Did you say you have been here alone all these years of the war ?”

“Yes, Aide Bolinbroke. My mother and sisters and the servants were swept away with the refugees. My father was killed while standing on the highest battlement of this chateau, leading the armies of France as he imagined.”

She led them through a low passage to the rooms within. These were large, well furnished, and well kept. Many lighted candles made the place cozy. In one of the center rooms, their dinner was spread, as they could see from the wash chamber, where she had provided them with water, soap and towels.

Marie busied herself making sure that she had done her best in everything.

“The world is full of variety,” said Eppstein, in a whisper, while they dusted their clothes and endeavored to make themselves look presentable.

“Humph !” grunted Bolinbroke, “weVe struck it this time. Tell me, how are we going to get away?”

“My dear chap, I don’t want to get away —

I don’t. Chuck this? I’m not. I’m jolly glad I’m here. ’Gad, I’ll wager there’s any amount of Madeira in this blooming chateau — champagne, too, no doubt! I say, old chap, where would you go?”

“Broadway!” exclaimed Bolinbroke, with a sigh.

“Oh, I wouldn’t mind to be at the Ritz, in London, to-night — if you awsk me, but what’s the good of it ?”

“Out with it!” said Bolinbroke, chuckling good-humoredly as Isaac stammered :

“If you’d awsk me. I’d— I’d ”

The Jew’s face beamed. He continued:

“I’d like to have that trunk of money, over the hill, converted into Uncle Sam’s currency, and be ensconced in my club, in Brooklyn, with a big Havana cigar.”

The three emitted hearty “he, he’s!” and poked each other’s ribs.

These men were products that come out of every war — brilliant, gifted, adventurous outlaws. Bolinbroke had at first followed the German army for salvage, then changed when America came into the strife. Stoddard was anything and everything. The Jew could not be explained by any sort of gymnastics of analogy, theory, sociology or racial tendencies. Wars, misfortunes and crimes make strange bedfellows. Anyway these three were well-suited partners. They had made, what Americans call “a team.” In one way and another, they had a curious fortune “collected” and stored away in divers places. They also had many scores to be squared from New York to Constantinople. At least three governments were looking for them. But they were clever, shrewd, finely educated men with good family histories back of them, and they had never been caught. In a way, they possessed many interesting traits.

“Dinner is served, gentlemen,” Alarie called from the next hall, along which she had run with springy step. “Oh, you play!” she added, pleased, as she saw Bolinbroke give Eppstein a jab in the stomach. I was afraid my Aides were tired.”

“We have not come so far,” explained Bolinbroke.

“Only quickly,” injected Stoddard.

“Yes, down the hill,” went on Marie, cheerily; “I’m glad, then, for you will be able to listen to much I have to say.”

Eppstein nudged his partners.

The table was round. Three plates were arranged so that Marie could command direct attention of her guests. A large candle chandelier above, filled with two score fresh lights, and many side candles about the room, shed a brilliancy of illumination that was but little short of the electric extravagance of a Paris salon. The men stood at the places indicated, staring in awed wonder at their beautiful hostess.

Marie’s inquiring look at them was steady and frank, but she got a detailed picture of each. Their ages all ranged between thirty and thirty-five. Bolinbroke was the eldest. He stood erect, as easy and precise as an Austrian officer. His stature was over six feet, and his fine body was broad, lithe and athletic. No man could present a more intelligent, open face. Clear, large blue eyes, big firm mouth, face strong and clean-shaven, head full of brains and covered with rich curly brown hair, solidly set on his shoulders. Few courts in the world would have separated him from the sheep as a goat. Eppstein was a typical high-grade Jew of large physique. No further description is necessary. As for how and why he was there, against the practices of his race, he could not tell. Many times within the past fortnight he had said to himself: “Isaac, you must be mad!” The Englishman was a short, spare-made blond with closely cropped mustache, gray eyes, perfect white teeth, florid round face, neat mouth and nose, big bullet head, lots of sense, jovial, nervy, brisk in speech and movement; a gambler, a man generous by nature, and mean from necessity, a sportsman, a crack shot, a horseman unexcelled, a gentleman of education and refinement — a scapegrace, for any man who would have wasted his talents when England needed them, deserved hanging, — a capital entertainer, good business man, and a man with a history that gave him an excuse.

Strange companions were Bolinbroke, Eppstein and Stoddard. But within each was something good.

Marie d’Estanger presided well at the frugal meal. There was plenty for all, however, and good wine. Coffee had long since given out, but at the finish she brought the Havana cigars for which Eppstein had wished. She knew only how her father had lived and entertained his guests.

While the three renegades sat back and became fascinated by her fresh, virginal beauty, Marie filled to the brim with her mission, began to speak.

At the outset, the strange men felt uncomfortable. What was this queenly girl talking about, anyway? Mad? No ; she was far from it. Soon, however, they were leaning on the table and their cigars had gone out.

Marie brought the Scriptures, and with the book before her, expounded its truths.

She read and quoted excerpts. “There is nothing added in what I am saying: it is not new. Blind and willful humanity has but refused to comprehend its plain, direct language, preferring to garble the Last Judgment into some mythical figure of an event in allegorical future that could never come into the cycle of the earth. Christ came first in simple, humble spirit to teach men the way of life — to plant the seed. He must come again as a mighty husbandman and king. Why not? What doctrine, or dogma, does it upset to expect Him to keep His promises as given to His disciples in Matthew, Mark and Luke?”

Fired to the depths of her soul, she carried them breathlessly through all the details of her communings with the Voices. She told them face to face of the Vision that had come to her early in the evening, and how the Angel had appointed her mission upon earth.

“I am the Messenger of Christ,” she declared with holy enthusiasm, “and you are my Aides. God has called me to announce His Second Coming. I have been given the power to heal men’s souls and bodies — if they believe. Permission was given me to select you to accompany me, and God turned you in to me. You are my Aides, and in the sacred name of Jesus, you shall labor with me.”

Easily she let herself down from the ecstatic state of religious fervor, and chatted naturally with them a few minutes before retiring.

“Oh ! your cigars are quite gone out. Light them again.

“I must sleep now. It is my custom to be regular. Come into the next room — there you may smoke and talk as long as you like. That is the way my father, Baron d’Estanger, always treated his friends. You will find in the great black case liquors and brandy, if you like some.”

No words came to the men of the world. “Yes” and “No” were as difficult paragraphs to them while Marie held them under her spell.

She knelt down in the middle of the room before them, and prayed as though Christ were a physical reality in the low chamber. Her requests for blessings on the men were so simple and direct that they winced and looked about shuddering.

“Good-night,” she said, and vanished like a fairy.

Bolinbroke closed the door and lit his cigar. Two other matches whirred, and all were silent for five minutes.

“I’m going to get out of this !”

“Don’t be profane, Stoddard,” said Bolinbroke seriously when Stoddard started to swear. “It isn’t decent after what we’ve heard.”

“Do you believe it?” asked Eppstein eagerly.

“No; not a bit of it. That’s another thing.”

Stoddard was doggedly but quietly searching about the room.

“What’re you doing?” demanded Bolinbroke.

“Looking for my hat !” replied the Englishman.

Bolinbroke laughed uproariously, and Eppstein giggled.

“You poor fool! The Messenger took our hats when we came in — they’re doubtless in her room. Come ! sit down. I’ll look after the brandy. Pull that chair up, Eppstein?”

The brandy was found. It shortly changed the complexion of things, and the extraordinary three were laughing and joking again. As time sped on, however, Bolinbroke occasionally lapsed into a deep study.

Finally Stoddard said “What’s on your mind ?”

“Thinking.”

Isaac looked interested.

“Yes, thinking; thinking some scheme — ^you Americans are ”

“I won’t have your profanity, Stoddard. Stop it, please.”

“I beg your pardon, sir; I wasn’t going to swear. Don’t let it trouble you. What were you thinking?”

Bolinbroke did not speak for some minutes. He smoked furiously, as if making up his mind to perpetrate some act of violence.

The Englishman and Jew waited.

“There’s money in this girl,” he said deliberately, and flicked the ashes from his cigar.

“How?” asked Eppstein instantly, true to his instinct.

“Well?” asked Stoddard, frowning.

“Exploit her — advertise her. There’s enormous money in the right scheme. That girl would bring millions in voluntary contributions to build Millennium tabernacles, — rescue India and China. Why, I can think out a business program that would catch this old world coming and going. People like to be humbugged.” Bolinbroke waxed warm on his scheme and sketched in a few side issues that were savory. “They’ll pay for being fooled, too, and count it for righteousness! Don’t you see it?”

“No, I don’t. That’s one job I don’t fancy,” said the Englishman.

“Why, religious stuff, if handled right, always catches a certain amount.”

“Yes,” went on Stoddard, more seriously than before. “I know a lot about these French girls — they’re always prophesying and seeing the Virgin Mary — the case at Lourdes, if you like; Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris; Joan of Arc ! Blowed if this slip here doesn’t claim to be descended from Joan’s family. Not by a jugful, sir, do I become sacrilegious! The whole bally thing might be true !”

“It’s a great scheme !” put in Eppstein, with calm decision,

“Stoddard, for argument’s sake. I’ll grant you that she is the real Messenger of Christ; and that the world is to be judged within her lifetime, say, but it is not sacrilegious to turn it into real money. Think, man! I’m not denying her convictions.”

Bolinbroke was a masterful leader. Once the fire was kindled, he always brought it to quick heat.

Surveying the determined Stoddard a half minute, he whistled a steady, single note, and added :

“It’s our escape. You know unless we adopt some extraordinary method of disguise, the three of us will be caught and shot !”

He pronounced the word “shot” with vehemence and a heavy stroke on the table.