Part 9

‘I’ll knock your head off.’

‘I’ll send a friend to you in the morning.’

‘I’ll send a bullet into you in the afternoon.’

‘We’ll meet again,’ says Giglio, shaking his fist in Bulbo’s face; and seizing up the warming-pan, he kissed it, because, forsooth, Betsinda had carried it, and rushed downstairs. What should he see on the landing but His Majesty talking to Betsinda, whom he called by all sorts of fond names. His Majesty had heard a row in the building, so he stated, and smelling something burning, had come out to see what the matter was.

‘It’s the young gentlemen smoking, perhaps, sir,’ says Betsinda.

‘Charming chambermaid,’ says the King (like all the rest of them), ‘never mind the young men! Turn thy eyes on a middle-aged autocrat, who has been considered not ill-looking in his time.’

‘Oh, sir! what will Her Majesty say?’ cries Betsinda.

‘Her Majesty!’ laughs the monarch. ‘Her Majesty be hanged. Am I not Autocrat of Paflagonia? Have I not blocks, ropes, axes, hangmen--ha? Runs not a river by my palace wall? Have I not sacks to sew up wives withal? Say but the word, that thou wilt be mine own,--your mistress straightway in a sack is sewn, and thou the sharer of my heart and throne.’

When Giglio heard these atrocious sentiments, he forgot the respect usually paid to Royalty, lifted up the warming-pan, and knocked down the King as flat as a pancake; after which, Master Giglio took to his heels and ran away, and Betsinda went off screaming, and the Queen, Gruffanuff, and the Princess, all came out of their rooms. Fancy their feelings on beholding their husband, father, sovereign, in this posture!

X. HOW KING VALOROSO WAS IN A DREADFUL PASSION

As soon as the coals began to burn him, the King came to himself and stood up. ‘Ho! my captain of the guards!’ His Majesty exclaimed, stamping his royal feet with rage. O piteous spectacle! the King’s nose was bent quite crooked by the blow of Prince Giglio! His Majesty ground his teeth with rage. ‘Hedzoff,’ he said, taking a death-warrant out of his dressing-gown pocket, ‘Hedzoff, good Hedzoff, seize upon the Prince. Thou’lt find him in his chamber two pair up. But now he dared, with sacrilegious hand, to strike the sacred night-cap of a king--Hedzoff, and floor me with a warming-pan! Away, no more demur, the villain dies! See it be done, or else,--h’m--ha!--h’m! mind shine own eyes!’ and followed by the ladies, and lifting up the tails of his dressing-gown, the King entered his own apartment.

Captain Hedzoff was very much affected, having a sincere love for Giglio. ‘Poor, poor Giglio!’ he said, the tears rolling over his manly face, and dripping down his moustachios; ‘my noble young Prince, is it my hand must lead thee to death?’

‘Lead him to fiddlestick, Hedzoff,’ said a female voice. It was Gruffanuff, who had come out in her dressing-gown when she heard the noise. ‘The King said you were to hang the Prince. Well, hang the Prince.’

‘I don’t understand you,’ says Hedzoff, who was not a very clever man.

‘You Gaby! he didn’t say WHICH Prince,’ says Gruffanuff.

‘No; he didn’t say which, certainly,’ said Hedzoff.

‘Well then, take Bulbo, and hang HIM!’

When Captain Hedzoff heard this, he began to dance about for joy. ‘Obedience is a soldier’s honour,’ says he. ‘Prince Bulbo’s head will do capitally,’ and he went to arrest the Prince the very first thing next morning.

He knocked at the door. ‘Who’s there?’ says Bulbo. ‘Captain Hedzoff? Step in, pray, my good Captain; I’m delighted to see you; I have been expecting you.’

‘Have you?’ says Hedzoff.

‘Sleibootz, my Chamberlain, will act for me,’ says the Prince.

‘I beg Your Royal Highness’s pardon, but you will have to act for yourself, and it’s a pity to wake Baron Sleibootz.’

The Prince Bulbo still seemed to take the matter very coolly. ‘Of course, Captain,’ says he, ‘you are come about that affair with Prince Giglio?’

‘Precisely,’ says Hedzoff, ‘that affair of Prince Giglio.’

‘Is it to be pistols, or swords, Captain?’ asks Bulbo. ‘I’m a pretty good hand with both, and I’ll do for Prince Giglio as sure as my name is My Royal Highness Prince Bulbo.’

‘There’s some mistake, my Lord,’ says the Captain. ‘The business is done with AXES among us.’

‘Axes? That’s sharp work,’ says Bulbo. ‘Call my Chamberlain, he’ll be my second, and in ten minutes, I flatter myself, you’ll see Master Giglio’s head off his impertinent shoulders. I’m hungry for his blood Hoooo, aw!’ and he looked as savage as an ogre.

‘I beg your pardon, sir, but by this warrant I am to take you prisoner, and hand you over to--to the executioner.’