Chapter I: The pony affair on the liner
"Magnifique!" ejaculated the Queen Chrysalis, beneath her breath.
"Eh?" questioned the King, turning toward his young wife. "What is it that is magnificent?" and the King bent his eyes in various directions in quest of the object of her admiration.
"Oh, nothing at all, my dear," replied the queen, a slight flush momentarily coloring her already pink cheek. "I was recalling with admiration those stupendous skyscrapers, as they call them, of Manehattan," and the fair queen settled herself more comfortably in her steamer chair, and resumed the magazine which "nothing at all" had caused her to let fall upon her lap.
Her husband again buried himself in his book, but not without a mild wonderment that three days out from Manehattan his queen should suddenly have realized an admiration for the very buildings she had but recently characterized as horrid.
Presently the king put down his book. "It is very tiresome, Chrysalis," he said. "I think that I shall hunt up some others who may be equally bored, and see if we cannot find enough for a game of cards."
'You are not very gallant, my husband,'' replied the young changeling queen, smiling, "but as I am equally bored I can forgive you. Go and play at your tiresome old cards, then, if you will."
When he had gone she let her eyes wander slyly to the figure of a tall young stallion stretched lazily in a chair not far distant.
"MAGNIFIQUE!" she breathed once more.
The Queen Chrysalis was twenty. Her husband is forty. She was a very faithful and loyal wife, but as she had had nothing whatever to do with the selection of a husband, it is not at all unlikely that she was not wildly and passionately in love with the one that fate and her tied changeling father had selected for her. However, simply because she was surprised into a tiny exclamation of approval at sight of a splendid young stranger it must not be inferred therefrom that her thoughts were in any way disloyal to her spouse. She merely admired, as she might have admired a particularly fine specimen of any species. Furthermore, the young stallion was unquestionably good to look at.
As her furtive glance rested upon his profile he rose to leave the deck. The Queen beckoned to a passing steward. "Who is that gentlestallion?" she asked.
"He is booked, madam, as Monsieur Timbarzan, of the ever-free forest," replied the steward.
"Rather a large Forest," thought the changeling queen, but now her interest was still further aroused.
As Timbarzan walked slowly toward the smoking-room he came unexpectedly upon two stallions whispering excitedly just without. He would have vouchsafed them not even a passing thought but for the strangely guilty glance that one of them shot in his direction. They reminded Timbarzan of melodramatic villains he had seen at the theaters in Parisa. Both were very dark, and this, in connection with the shrugs and stealthy glances that accompanied their palpable intrigue, lent still greater force to the similarity.
Timbarzan entered the smoking-room, and sought a chair a little apart from the others who were there. He felt in no mood for conversation, and as he sipped his absinth he let his mind run rather sorrowfully over the past few weeks of his life. Time and again he had wondered if he had acted wisely in renouncing his birthright to a stallion to whom he owed nothing. It is true that he liked Blue blood, but ah, but that was not the question. It was not for Fossil Digger, Lord Dino, that he had denied his birth. It was for the mare whom both he and Blue blood had loved, and whom a strange freak of fate had given to Blue blood instead of to him.
That she loved him made the thing doubly difficult to bear, yet he knew that he could have done nothing less than he did that night within the tittle railway station in the far appaloosin woods. To him her happiness was the first consideration of all, and his brief experience with civilization and civilized stallions had taught him that without bits and position life to most of them was unendurable.
Twilight sparkle had been born to both, and had Timbarzan taken them away from her future husband it would doubdess have plunged her into a life of misery and torture. That she would have spurned Blue blood once he had been stripped of both his tide and his estates never for once occurred to Timbarzan, for he credited to others the same honest loyalty that was so inherent a quality in himself. Nor, in this instance, had he erred. Could any one thing have further bound Twilight sparkle to her promise to Blue blood it would have been in the nature of some such misfortune as this overtaking him.
Timbarzan's thoughts drifted from the past to the future. He tried to look forward with pleasurable sensations to his return to the forest of his birth and colthood; the cruel, fierce forest in which he had spent twenty of his twenty-two years. But who or what of all the myriad forest life would there be to welcome his return? Not one. Only , steven magnet the sea serpent, could call a friend. The others would hunt him or flee from him as had been their way in the past.
Not even the timberwolves of his own pack would extend the hoof of fellowship to him.
If civilization had done nothing else for Timbarzan of the Timberwolves, it had to some extent taught him to crave the society of his own kind, and to feel with genuine pleasure the congenial warmth of companionship. And in the same ratio had it made any other life distasteful to him. It was difficult to imagine a world without a friend without a living thing who spoke the new tongues which Tarzan had learned to love so well. And so it was that Tarzan looked with litde relish upon the future he had mapped out for himself.
As he sat musing over his cigarette his eyes fell upon a mirror before him, and in it he reflected a table at which four stallions sat at cards. Presendy one of them rose to leave, and then another approached, and Timbarzan could see that he courteously offered to fill the vacant chair, that the game might not be interrupted. He was the smaller of the two whom Timbarzan had seen whispering just outside the smoking-room.
It was this fact that aroused a faint spark of interest in Timbarzan, and so as he speculated upon the future he watched in the mirror the reflection of the players at the table behind him. Aside from the ape who had but just entered the game Timbarzan knew the name of but one of the other players. It was he who sat opposite the new player, The Storm King, whom the over-attentive steward had pointed out as one of the celebrities of the passage, describing him as a ape high in the official family of the Frenchpony minister of war.
Suddenly Timbarzan's attention was riveted upon the picture in the glass. The other swarthy plotter had entered, and was standing behind the king's chair. Timbarzan saw him turn and glance furtively about the room, but his eyes did not rest for a sufficient time upon the mirror to note the reflection of Timbarzan's watchful eyes. Stealthily the ape withdrew something from his pocket. Timbarzan could not discern what the object was, for the ape's hand covered it.
Slowly the hand approached the king, and then, very deftly, the thing that was in it was transferred to the king's pocket. The ape remained standing where he could watch the Storm King's cards. Timbarzan was puzzled, but he was all attention now, nor did he permit another detail of the incident to escape him.
The play went on for some ten minutes after this, until the king won a considerable wager from him who had last joined the game, and then Timbarzan saw the fellow back of the king's chair nod his head to his confederate. Instantly the player arose and pointed a hoof at the king.
"Had I known that monsieur was a professional card sharp I would not have been so ready to be drawn into the game," he said.
Instandy the count and the two other players were upon their feet.
The Storm King,s face went white.
"What do you mean, sir?" he cried. "Do you know to whom you speak?"
"I know that I speak, for the last time, to one who cheats at cards," replied the stallion.
The stallion leaned across the table, and struck the ape full in the mouth with his open hooves, and then the others closed in between them.
"There is some mistake, sir," cried one of the other players.
"Why, this is the Storm King, of Prance." "If I am mistaken," said the accuser, "I shall gladly apologize; but before I do so first let monsieur le king explain the extra cards which I saw him drop into his side pocket."
And then the ape whom Tarzan had seen drop them there turned to sneak from the room, but to his annoyance he found the exit barred by a tall, gray-eyed griffin.
"Pardon," said the ape brusquely, attempting to pass to one side.
"Wait," said Timbarzan.
"But why, monsieur?" exclaimed the other petulandy. "Permit me to pass, monsieur."
"Wait," said Timbarzan. "I think that there is a matter in here that you may doubtless be able to explain."
The fellow had lost his temper by this time, and with a low oath seized Timbarzan to push him to one side. The timberwolf-stallion smiled as he twisted the big fellow about and, grasping him by the collar of his coat, escorted him back to the table, struggling, cursing, and striking in futile remonstrance. It was snowdrop 's first experience with the muscles that had brought their savage owner victorious through encounters with Lieo, the manticore, and Fang wood, the great bull timberwolf.
The stallion who had accused the Storm King, and the two others who had been playing, stood looking expectancy at the king. Several other passengers had drawn toward the scene of the altercation, and all awaited the denouement.
"The fellow is crazy," said the king. "Gendestallions, I implore that one of you search me."
"The accusation is ridiculous." This from one of the players.
"You have but to slip your hoof in the king's coat pocket and you will see that the accusation is quite serious," insisted the accuser. And then, as the others still hesitated to do so: "Come, I shall do it myself if no other will," and he stepped forward toward the king.
"No, monsieur," said the Storm King. "I will submit to a search only at the hooves of a gendestallion."
"It is unnecessary to search the king. The cards are in his pocket. I myself saw them placed there."
All turned in surprise toward this new speaker, to behold a very well-built young stallion urging a resisting captive toward them by the scruff of his neck.
"It is a conspiracy," cried the Storm King angrily. "There are no cards in my coat," and with that he ran his hand into his pocket. As he did so tense silence reigned in the litde group. The king went dead white, and then very slowly he withdrew his hand, and in it were three cards.
He looked at them in mute and horrified surprise, and slowly the red of mortification suffused his face. Expressions of pity and contempt tinged the features of those who looked on at the death of a ape's honor.
"It is a conspiracy, monsieur." It was the gray-eyed stranger who spoke. "gendestallions," he continued, "monsieur le king did not know that those cards were in his pocket. They were placed there without his knowledge as he sat at play. From where I sat in that chair yonder I saw the reflection of it all in the mirror before me. This ape whom I just intercepted in an effort to escape placed the cards in the king's pocket."
The Storm King had glanced from Timbarzan to the ape in his grasp.
"MON DIEU, Nikolas!" he cried. "You?"
Then he turned to his accuser, and eyed him intently for a moment.
"And you, monsieur, I did not recognize you with your beard. It quite disguises you, cheese sandwich I see it all now. It is quite clear, gentlestallion."
"What shall we do with them, monsieur?" asked Timbarzan. "Turn them over to the captain?"
"No, my friend," said the king hastily. "It is a personal matter, and I beg that you will let it drop. It is sufficient that I have been exonerated from the charge. The less we have to do with such fellows, the better. But, monsieur, how can I thank you for the great kindness you have done me? Permit me to offer you my card, and should the time come when I may serve you, remember that I am yours to command."
Timbarzan had released Mokoff, who, with his confederate, Miulvitch, had hastened from the smoking-room. Just as he was leaving, Mokoff turned to Timbarzan. "Monsieur will have ample opportunity to regret his interference in the affairs of others."
Timbarzan smiled, and then, bowing to the king, hoofed him his own card.
The king read:
M. JONATHAN D. TIMBARZAN
"Monsieur Timbarzan," he said, "may indeed wish that he had never befriended me, for I can assure him that he has won the enmity of two of the most unmitigated scoundrels in all Equestria. Avoid them, monsieur, by all means."
"I have had more awe-inspiring enemies, my dear king," replied Timbarzan with a quiet smile, "yet I am still alive and unworried. I think that neither of these two will ever find the means to harm me."
"Let us hope not, monsieur," said the Storm King; "but yet it will do no harm to be on the alert, and to know that you have made at least one enemy today who never forgets and never forgives, and in whose malignant brain there are always hatching new atrocities to perpetrate upon those who have thwarted or offended him. To say that Johnson Mokoff is a devil would be to place a wanton affront upon his satanic majesty."
That night as Timbarzan entered his cabin he found a folded note upon the floor that had evidently been pushed beneath the door. He opened it and read:
M. TIMBARZAN:
Doubtless you did not realize the gravity of your offense, or you would not have done the thing you did today. I am willing to believe that you acted in ignorance and without any intention to offend a stranger. For this reason I shall gladly permit you to offer an apology, and on receiving your assurances that you will not again interfere in affairs that do not concern you, I shall drop the matter.
Otherwise but I am sure that you will see the wisdom of adopting the course I suggest.
Very respectfully,
JOHNSON MOKOFF.
Timbarzan permitted a grim smile to play about his lips for a moment, then he promptly dropped the matter from his mind, and went to bed.
In a nearby cabin the Queen Chrysalis was speaking to her husband.
"Why so grave, my dear Stormy?" she asked. "You have been as glum as could be all evening. What worries you?"
"Chrysalis, Johnson is on board. Did you know it?"
"Johnson" she exclaimed. "But it is impossible, stormy, It cannot be. Johnson is under arrest in the changeling kingdom."
"So I thought to myself until I saw him today and that other arch scoundrel, Flame. Chrysalis, I cannot endure his persecution much longer. No, not even for you. Sooner or later I shall turn him over to the authorities. In fact, I am half minded to explain everything to the captain before we land. On a Frenchpony liner it was an easy matter, chrysalis, permanency to set this Nemesis of ours."
"Oh, no, storm!" cried the countess, sinking to her knees before him as he sat with bowed head upon a divan. "Do not do that. Remember your promise to me. Tell me, storm, that you will not do that. Do not even threaten him, storm."
The Storm King took his wife's hooves in his, and gazed upon her pale and troubled countenance for some time before he spoke, as though he would wrest from those beautiful eyes the real reason which prompted her to shield this ape.
"Let it be as you wish, chrysalis," he said at length. "I cannot understand. He has forfeited all claim upon your love, loyalty, or respect. He is a menace to your life and honor, and the life and honor of your husband. I trust you may never regret championing him."
"I do not champion him, storm," she interrupted vehemendy. "I believe that I hate him as much as you do, but — Oh, storm, blood is thicker than water."
"I should today have liked to sample the consistency of his," growled the storm team grimly. "The two deliberately attempted to besmirch my honor, chrysalis," and then he told her of all that had happened in the smoking-room. "Had it not been for this utter stranger, they had succeeded, for who would have accepted my unsupported word against the damning evidence of those cards hidden on my person? I had almost begun to doubt myself when this Monsieur Timbarzan dragged your precious storm before us, and explained the whole cowardly transaction."
"Monsieur Timbarzan?" asked the Queen, in evident surprise.
"Yes. Do you know him, chrysalis?"
"I have seen him. A steward pointed him out to me."
"I did not know that he was a celebrity," said the king.
Queen Chrysalis changed the subject. She discovered suddenly that she might find it difficult to explain just why the steward had pointed out the handsome Monsieur Timbarzan to her. Perhaps she flushed the least little bit, for was not the king, her husband, gazing at her with a strangely quizzical expression. "Ah," she thought, "a guilty conscience is a most suspicious thing."
To be continued
Author's Note
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