THE arrival of the Princess very much increased the gaiety and activity of life within the palace. Every one became impressed with the idea that the one thing necessary was to entertain her. The actors set to work to prepare new plays, new spectacles; the musicians to compose new combinations of quaint notes; the poets new sonnets on strange and, if possible, new conceits. As the Princess was very difficult to please, and as it was almost impossible to conceive anything which appeared new to her jaded intellect, the difficulty of the task caused any idea that promised novelty to be seized upon with a desperate determination. The most favourite one still continued to be the proposition that Mark should be induced, by fair means or foul, to take a part upon the stage. His own character the rôle which he instinctively played was so absolutely original and fresh that the universal opinion was confident of the success of such a performance.

“By some means or other,” said old Carricchio, “he must be got to act.”

“You may do what you will with him,” said the Signorina sadly; “he will die. He is too good to live. Like my little brother and the poor canary, he will die.”

In pursuit, then, of this ingenious plan, the Princess was requested to honour with her presence a performance of a hitherto unknown character, to be given in the palace gardens. She at first declined, saying that she had seen everything that could be performed so often that she was sick of such things, and that each of their vaunted and promised novelties proved more stale and dull than its precursor. It was therefore necessary to let her know something of what was proposed; and no sooner did she understand that Mark was to be the centre round which the play turned, than she entered into the plot with the greatest zeal.

It is, perhaps, not strange that to such a woman Mark’s character and personality offered a singular novelty and even charm. The thought of triumphing over this child-like innocence, of contrasting it with the licence and riot which the play would offer, struck her jaded curiosity with a sense of delicious freshness, and she took an eager delight in the arrangement and contrivance of the scenes.

In expansion of the idea suggested by some of the wonderful theatres in Italy, where the open-air stage extended into real avenues and thickets, it was decided that the entire play should be represented in the palace gardens: and that, in fact, the audience should take part in the action of the drama. This, where the whole household was theatrical, and where the actors were trained in the Italian comedy, which left so much to the improvisatore to the individual taste and skill of the actor was a scheme not difficult to realise.

The palace garden, which was very large, was disposed in terraces and hedges; it was planted with numerous thickets and groves, and, wherever the inequalities of the ground allowed it, with lofty banks of thick shrubs crowned with young trees, beneath which were arranged statues and fountains in the Italian manner. The hedges were cut into arcades and arches, giving free access to the retired lawns and shady nooks; and these arcades, and the lofty groves and terraces, gave a constant sense of mystery and expectation to the scene. The ample lawns and open spaces afforded more than one suitable stage, upon which the most important scenes of a play might be performed.

Beneath one of the highest and most important banks, which stretched in a perfectly straight line across the garden, planted thickly with flowering shrubs and fringed at the top with a long line of young trees, whose delicate foliage was distinct against the sky, was placed the largest of the fountains. It was copied from that in the Piazza Santa Maria in Transtevere in Rome, and was ornamented with great shells, fish, and Tritons. On either side of the fountain, and leading to the terrace at the back, were flights of marble steps, with wide-stretching stone bases upon either side towering above the grass. In front of the fountain and of the steps, beyond a belt of greensward, were long hedges planted in parallel rows, and connected in arches and arcades, crossing and re-crossing each other in an intricate maze, so that a large company, wandering through their paths, might suddenly appear and disappear. Beyond the hedges the lawn stretched out again, broken by flowerbeds and statues, and fringed by masses of foliage and lofty limes. A sound of falling water was heard on all sides; and, by mysterious contrivance of concealed mechanism, flute and harp music sounded from the depths of the bosky groves.

Mark knew little of what was going on. He occupied himself mostly with his young pupils; but the conversation he had had with the Princess Isoline had troubled his mind, and a sense of perplexity and of approaching evil weighed upon his spirits and affected his health. He, who had never known sickness in his peasant life, now, when confined to a life so unnatural and artificial, so out of harmony with his mind and soul, became listless and weak in body, and haunted by fitful terrors and failings of consciousness. He knew that some extraordinary preparations were being made; but he was not spoken to upon the subject, and paid little attention to what was going on. Indeed, had he been in the least of a suspicious nature, the entire absence of solicitation or interference might have led him to suspect some secret machination against his simplicity and peace, some contrived treachery at work; but no such idea crossed his mind, he occupied himself with his own melancholy thoughts and with the histories and parables which he related to his pupils.

On the morning of the day fixed for the performance, then, things being in this condition, Mark rose early. He had been informed that it was necessary that he should wear his best court-suit, which we have seen was of black silk with white bands and ruffles. He gave his pupils a short lesson, but their thoughts were so much occupied by the expectation of the coming festivity that he soon released them and wandered out into the gardens alone. The performance of the play had been fixed for noon.

The day was bright and serene. The gardens were brilliant with colour and sweet with the perfume of flowers and herbs. Strains of mysterious harmony from secret music startled the wanderer along the paths.

Mark strayed listlessly through the more distant groves. He was distressed and dissatisfied with himself. His spirit seemed to have lost its happy elasticity, his mind its active joyousness. The things which formerly delighted him no longer seemed to please, even the loveliness of nature was unable to arouse him. He found himself envying those others who took so much real delight, or seemed to him to do so, in fantastic and frivolous music and jest and comic sport. He began to wonder what this new surprising play these elaborately prepared harmonies these swells and runs and shakes might prove to be. Then he hated himself for this envy for this curiosity. He wished to return to his old innocence his old simplicity.

But he felt that this could never be. As the Princess had told him, whatever in after years he might become, never would he taste this delight of his child’s nature again. He was inexpressibly sad and depressed.

As he wandered on, not knowing where he went, and growing almost stupid, and indifferent even to pain, he found himself suddenly surrounded by a throng of dancing and laughing girls. It was easy, in this magic garden, to steal unobserved upon any one amid the bosky hedges and arcades; but to surprise one so abstracted as the dreamy and listless boy required no effort at all. With hands clasped and mocking laughter they surrounded the unhappy Mark. They were masqued, with delicate bits of fringed silk across the eyes, but had they not been so he was too confused to have recognised them. He tried in vain to escape. Then he was lifted from the ground by a score of hands and borne rapidly away.

The stories of swan-maidens and winged fairies of his old histories crossed his mind, and he seemed to be flying through the air; suddenly this strange flight came to an end; he was on his feet again, and, as he looked confusedly around, he found that he was alone.

He was standing on a circular space of lawn, surrounded by the lofty wood. In the centre was an antique statue of a faun playing upon a flute. He seemed to recognise the scene, but could not in his confusion recall in what part of the vast garden it lay.

As he stood, lost in wonder and expectation, a fairy-like figure was suddenly present before him, from whence coming he could not tell. The slim and delicate form was dressed in a gossamer robe, through which the lovely limbs might be seen. She held a light masque in her hand, and laughed at him with her dancing eyes and rosy mouth. It was the little Princess, his pupil.

Even now no thought of plot or treachery entered the boy’s mind; he gazed at her in wondering amaze.

“You must come with me,” said the girl-princess, holding out her hand; “I am sent to fetch you to the under world.”

Behind them as they stood, and facing the statue of the faun, was a cave or hollow in the wood, half concealed by the pendant tendrils of creeping and flowering plants. It seemed the opening of a subterranean passage. The child pushed aside the hanging blossoms and drew Mark, still dazed and unresisting, after her. They went down into the dark cave.

Meanwhile from early dawn the palace had been noisy with pattering feet. For its bizarre population was augmented from many sources, and the great performance of the day taxed the exertions of all. As the morning advanced visitors began to arrive, and were marshalled to certain parts of the gardens where positions were allotted them, and refreshments served in tents. They were mostly masqued. Then strange groups began to form themselves before the garden front of the palace, and on the terraces. These were all masqued, and dressed in variety of incongruous and fantastic costumes, for though the play was supposed to be classical, yet the necessity of entertaining the Princess with something startling and lively was more exacting than artistic congruity. As we have seen, the Prince had always inclined more to the fairy and masqued comedy than to the serious opera, and on this occasion the result was more original and fantastic than had ever before been achieved.

As the morning went on, there gradually arranged itself, as if by fortuitous incident, as strange a medley of fairy mediaeval legend and of classic lore as eye ever looked upon. As the Prince and Princess, surrounded by their principal guests, all masqued and attired in every shade of colour and diversity of form, stood upon the steps before the palace, the wide gardens seemed full of groups equally varied and equally brilliant with their own. From behind the green screens of the hedges, and from beneath the arcades, figures were constantly emerging and passing again out of sight, apparently accidentally, but in fact with a carefully-devised plan. Strains of delicate music filled the air.

Then a group of girls in misty drapery, and masqued across the eyes, the same indeed that had carried off Mark, appeared suddenly before the princely group. They had discovered in the deepest dell of their native mountain a deserted babe the offspring doubtless of the loves of some wandering god. They were become its nurses, and fed it upon sacred honey and consecrated bread. Of immortal birth themselves, and untouched by the passing years, the boy became, as he grew up, the plaything, and finally the beloved of his beautiful friends. But the boy himself is indifferent to their attractions, and careless or averse to their caresses. He is often lost to them, and wanders in the mountain fastnesses with the fawns and kids.

All this and more was told in action, in song, and recitative, upon the palace lawns before this strange audience, themselves partly actors in the pastoral drama. Rural dances, and games and sacrifices were presented with delicately-conceived grouping and pictorial effect. Then the main action of the drama developed itself. The most lovely of the nymphs, the queen and leader of the rest, inspires a devoted passion in the heart of the priest of Apollo, before whose altar they offer sacrifice, and listen for guiding and response. She rejects his love with cruel contempt, pining always for the coy and errant boy-god, who thinks of nothing but the distant mountain summits and the divine whispers of the rustling woods. The priest, insulted and enraged, invokes the aid of his divinity, and a change comes over the gay and magic scene. A terrible pestilence strikes down the inhabitants of these sylvan lawns, and gloomy funerals, and the pathetic strains of dirges take the place of dances and lively songs.

The terrified people throw themselves before the altar of the incensed Apollo, and the god speaks again. His anger can be appeased only by the sacrifice of the contemptuous nymph who has insulted his priest, or of some one who is willing to perish in her place. Proclamation is made across the sunny lawns, inviting a victim who will earn the wreath of self-sacrifice and of immortal consciousness of a great deed, but there is no response.

The fatal day draws on; the altar of sacrifice is prepared; but there spreads a rumour among the crowd fanned probably by hope that at the last moment a god will interfere. Some even speak of the wandering boy, if he could only be found. Surely he so removed from earthly and selfish loves, so strange in his simplicity, in his purity surely he would lay down his guileless life without a pang. Could he only be found! or would he appear!

The herald’s voice had died away for the third time amid a fanfare of trumpets. At the foot of the steps of the long terrace, by the Roman fountain, a delicate and lovely form stood on the grassy verge before the altar, by the leaping and rushing water’s side; a little to the left, whence the road from Hades was supposed to come, stood the divine messenger, the lofty herald clad in white, with a white wand; behind the altar stood the wretched priest, on whom the fearful task devolved, the passion of terror, of pity, and of love, traced upon his face; all sound of music had died away; a hush as of death itself fell upon the expectant crowd; from green arch and trellised walk the throng of masques, actors and spectators alike, pressed forward upon the lawn before the altar.... The priest tore the fillet from his brow and threw down his knife.

The darkness of the cave gave place to a burst of dazzling sunlight as Mark and the little Princess, who in the darkness had resumed her masque, came out suddenly from the unseen opening upon one of the great stone bases by the side of the steps. To the boy’s wonderstruck sense the flaring light, the mystic and awful forms, the thronged masques, the shock of surprise and terror, fell with a stunning force. He uttered a sharp cry like that of a snared and harmless creature of the woods. He pressed his hands before his face to shut out the bewildering scene, and, stepping suddenly backward in his surprise, fell from the edge of the stone platform some eight feet to the ground. A cry of natural terror broke from the victim, in place of the death-song she was expected to utter, and she left her place and sprang forward towards the steps. The crowd of masques which surrounded the Prince came forward tumultuously, and a hurried movement and cry ran through the people, half of whom were uncertain whether the settled order of the play was interrupted or not.

Mark lay quite still on the grass, his eyes closed, the Signorina bending over him; but the herald, who was in fact director of the play, waved his wand imperiously before the masques, and they fell back.

“Resume your place, Signorina,” he said, “this part of the play has, apparently, failed. You will sing your death-song, and the priest will offer himself in your stead.”

But the girl rose, and, forcing her way to where the Prince stood, threw herself upon his arm.

“Oh, stop it, Highness, stop it!” she cried, amid a passion of sobs; “he is dying, do you not see!”

The Prince removed his masque; those around him, following the signal, also unmasqued, and the play was stopped.