Delphi Collected Works of M. P. Shiel (Illustrated)

The Collected Works of

M. P. SHIEL

(1865-1947)

Contents

The Novels

The Rajah’s Sapphire (1896)

The Yellow Danger (1898)

Contraband of War (1899)

Cold Steel (1899)

The Man-Stealers (1900)

The Lord of the Sea (1901)

The Purple Cloud (1901)

The Evil That Men Do (1904)

The Lost Viol (1905)

The Yellow Wave (1905)

The Last Miracle (1906)

The White Wedding (1908)

The Isle of Lies (1909)

The Dragon (1913)

Children of the Wind (1923)

The Young Men Are Coming! (1937)

The Short Story Collections

Prince Zaleski (1895)

Shapes in the Fire (1896)

Miscellaneous Short Stories

The Non-Fiction

Science, Life and Literature (1950)

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The Collected Works of

M. P. SHIEL

By Delphi Classics, 2021

COPYRIGHT

Collected Works of M. P. Shiel

First published in the United Kingdom in 2021 by Delphi Classics.

© Delphi Classics, 2021.

All rights reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

ISBN: 978 1 91348 745 4

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The Novels

Matthew Phipps Shiell was born on the island of Montserrat in the West Indies in 1865.

Victorian drawing of Montserrat executed five years before the author’s birth

The Rajah’s Sapphire (1896)

Written in collaboration with W. T. Stead

M. P. Shiel was born and brought up in Montserrat, a British colony with a long history of slavery and exploitation. Shiel’s father was an Irish ship-owner, shopkeeper and lay preacher, while his mother was biracial and claimed Andalusian and North African heritage. Young Shiel received a good education in Barbados at the prestigious Harrison College, before he moved to London to pursue his career. His earliest literary works were two collections of short stories, Prince Zaleski (1895) and Shapes in the Fire (1896); they were minor successes, helping him to establish his reputation as a writer.

The Rajah’s Sapphire was Shiel’s first novel, published in 1896 by Ward, Lock and Bowden in London. The idea of writing the book began when the journalist and editor, W. T. Stead, approached Shiel in 1893, asking him to write for his new magazine, The Daily Paper. It was intended as a spin-off from the successful and prestigious Review of Reviews journal. Stead asked Shiel to contribute work for a series that aimed to recount historical events through the medium of fictional stories. It is not known precisely how much Stead contributed to the outline of Shiel’s novel, but after only one edition, The Daily Paper failed and the novel remained unreleased for another three years.

It is an action adventure story centred on the crossing of paths between Stefan Von Reutlingen, a conscientious German diplomat and the dangerous, grotesquely wealthy and reckless American, Ralph Ralloner.

The first edition

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

Shiel as a young man

CHAPTER I.

THE MARKGRAF STEFAN von Reutlingen, that rising son of the corps diplomatique, was not in the best of spirits. He felt as if he lacked part of himself, like an animal whose tail has been decapitated; for, while his handsome, knit body was in close attendance on the Kaiser at the Zeughaus, in Berlin, on the particular Sunday afternoon in question, the most important organ of that same handsome body was away truant in a certain western English county. Now, a frame without a heart is like an egg without salt; and thus it was that the Kaiser frowned more than once during the day to find his brilliant protege insipid to his taste, wearing an absent look, and giving spiritless answers to the spirited questions of his volcanic sovereign.

It was the 27th of January, in this year of grace 1895, and so, of course, the birthday of Wilhelm. Stefan’s first task for the day had been to attend in the train of his young master at the Palast-kapelle to hear divine service. The soldier-emperor is nothing if not devout, and the days wound up with wine-libations to Mars are usually begun by him with the payment of his respects to the Nazarene carpenter. Stefan, too, like most sons of noble, old German races, had a tincture of a certain haughty piety in his composition. He rose early, full of the great day and all its details, sighed the name of a certain Ada Macdonald, called down with genuine feeling a blessing on the turbulent head of his young master, and, having ensconced his feet in the fur of a pair of wrought slippers and his back in the fur of a dressing-gown of scarlet velvet, sat down to the white napery and the silver service of a dainty private breakfast.

Fritz, the trusty, his right-hand man, the only living being who could satisfactorily wax the sweeping, diplomatic semi-circles of the young Markgraf’s radiant moustache, placed gingerly by his right hand the privileged letters of the morning, and it was the very first of these which the Markgraf opened that sealed the fate of his good spirits for the rest of that day. Stefan had a trick of tapping lightly with his knuckles on the nearest convenient surface in moments of high impatience, and for a full quarter of an hour after reading this letter he gazed vaguely before him, and the table sounded forth a gentle, mechanical tattoo under his tapping hand. The note was short, and ran:

"Dearest, — All is fixed. The ball will be, after all, on the 6th. and you are going to be there. Do not tell me about diplomacy, do not tell me about your too absurd, little Kaiser! If trifles such as these keep you from me at a time when I specially require, and demand, your presence — what am I to think? No, no, you must come. It will be no ball to your Ada if you are not there; I think you appreciate the compliment. And there is danger in your absence, mon ami, at a function such as that. Can you not conceive how poor little me will be nibbled at, fished for, hunted like a stag by the hunters? And how can I save myself? Not mine the fault if the rats prefer Gorgonzola to Cheshire. I did not make the golden vermilion flashings which lure the fishers to linger above my waters. If my hoofs are slender, and the coating of my haunches sleek, I am no more responsible for that than I am for the fact that the hunters persist in preferring sleek and slender quarry. Come, come, and rescue me. And here is some news for you which should spur you: I have had another, my dear; yes, yet another. Think of it! Is this the twenty-ninth or the thirtieth? I forget. I have them all noted down in my diary with the records of my new gowns. And only guess from whom this last comes? Oh, it fills the cup of your Ada’s bitterness to the brim! From whom but from the ‘High-flyer.’ Know you in the Fatherland the fame and prowess of that knight? The ‘High-flyer,’ my dear. He went down upon one of his little nervous knees and implored me to be his! Art jealous? Don’t! Still, I assure you, he did it very prettily, and I was far from really degoute. The man has a certain charm, though he is undoubtedly madder than any March hare that ever scampered over a hill. He called me the Virgin Mary: said that then, for the first time in his life, he bent the knee before the unsullied soul of a virgin. And when I recommended him to rise from his too-absurd position he seemed to forget all about the matter at once, and coolly commenced to talk of — something else. Not one single word of it all did that man really mean! He is simply the creature of sheer, headlong, momentary impulse, and rather a ruffian into the bargain. And yet I like him — and, oh, he is so rich! He is to be at the ball, if he can remember so small a matter for so long a time as a week.

"I am now staying at Lord Darley’s, in Somersetshire; but shall be in London with the St. John-Heygates in two days: we return west together for the ball. I shall meet you in London without fail, remember.

"Yours, yours!

Ada.

P.S. — I have, or had, something — a favor — to ask you. Dare I? But no, I am superstitious — and I love you! No, no. And yet I dearly wish it, too.

The Markgraf Stefan’s immediate reply to this letter was the tattoo with his knuckles on the table. He frowned, he ran his fingers through his hair, he made slender as his toothpick the ends of his moustache. And — who — the devil. he slowly asked himself, is the High-flyer? The one thing he disliked in that perfection, his beloved, was a certain too high respect he had noticed in her for wealth — wealth for wealth’s sake. Ada Macdonald loved him, and he was not rich: she did not love the High-flyer, but she loved money, and the High-flyer had what she loved. Small things trouble the lover, and Stefan was an intense member of that sect. Donner and Blitz! — he was still old-fashioned Teuton enough to swear by the elements in his hour of oaths— who — the devil — is the High-flyer? And with this second repetition of the question, a certain reputation flashed across his memory. Ralloner, perhaps? Yes, surely, that must be the man who had received this nickname in England; Ralloner, the incarnate whirlwind, that genius of the hurricane, the typhoon of flesh. The rumor of him had filled Europe, the dollar-compeller, the madcap, the dispenser of palaces, the keeper of zenanas whose inmates were countesses and prima donnas. And this ghoul had been on a knee before his betrothed — a dangerous man, not to be baulked in his impulses! Stefan shivered; he pushed the plate from him. And when Ada had refused him, the High-flyer seemed to forget all about the matter at once. How patent a pretence! Such a man must have meant all he said. Why did he think of going to the ball, where she was to be the brightest, most particular star of all? Fashionable functions of that kind were surely not the kind of places to which a wild spirit like Ralloner devoted his time. The ruse was patent. And to think that he, the Markgraf von Reutlingen, was tied here to Berlin, tied for a month at least, by the exigencies of diplomacy, to the heels of the Kaiser, without hope or respite! He cursed fate, and the Chancellor, and the great lady whose ball was to out-dazzle Solomon and the gems of Golconda; and when, by 11 o’clock, he sat on the blue velvet-cushioned pew immediately behind his Imperial Majesty in the Palast-kapelle, out of the same mouth proceeded blessings and verdaments.

To-night — at 10 — in my private room, behind the Ballzimmer, said the Chancellor in his ear in low, mysterious tones, as the procession of the Court was passing out of the chapel.

He turned, in wonder, to question, but the Minister had already retired a few steps, and was lending ear to some close words of the Emperor.

After a somewhat hurried lunch, Wilhelm, followed by his staff-officers, the chief of the Civil Cabinet, the Chancellor, and the principal Ministers, drove to the Zeughaus to attend the ceremony of giving the password. Berlin was en fete. Huzzas and flags made a double hedge about him as he sailed through the palisade of the jubilant people. As he passed the University a band sent forth from its deep throat the patriotic song, Heil dir in Siegeskranz. Stefan, with his back to the horses, in company with some of his superiors in diplomacy, began to give rein to generous enthusiasms, until the sudden curb-bit of the thought of the High-flyer ripped his mouth, and instantly he was in the glums again. A salvo of cannon greeted the Emperor at the Zeughaus. The party drew up in the great quadrangle, lined with its glittering array of warriors under arms; then followed the salute and manoeuvrings under the proud eye of the modern Alexander of the Germans; and then, for the first time, an army corps commander stood forth and read, as with the mouth of the trumpet, the famous manifesto of the Birthday. After referring to the military victories, which were crowned by the foundation of the German Empire, and thanking the army, the manifesto ordered that for a year the banners and standards which received distinction from the late Emperor William during the war should, on public occasions, be adorned with oak leaves. The guns and batteries engaged in the Franco-German War were to be decorated in the same way. Almost immediately on the reading of this document, the Imperial cortege moved off to return to the Palace. A mighty cheer burst as from one throat from the quadrangle of the Zeughaus.

It was now late. The scene in the streets was one of medley, luridness, and grandeur. Only seat strutting young Crudity on an old throne; clap a crown upon its head; stick a sceptre into its hand; fill its blatant mouth with high-sounding words about God and kingship; and now call down the mantle of night on a great city, illuminated; jumble the hot populace, empty of comfort and thought, in the streets, and bid them howl and roar the agony of their vacuum in wild huzzas; over all the noise let bands brazen out their jubilees and the tongues of a hundred bells talk; and you have a measure of the scene in Berlin on the evening of Sunday, the 27th of January.

After the highly ceremonial State dinner in the Palace, at which sat the Royal guests of Saxony and Wurtemburg, our own Duke of Coburg, and the Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, the Imperial party adjourned to the brilliant performance at the Royal Opera. Berlin through all its width was a city of feasts. Private houses were decorated. Dinners ministerial, dinners official, club, military, were popping loud with corks; and tongues, venting to heaven his Majesty’s health, drunk three times three according to time-honored custom. Wilhelm sat in his box at the opera, the high flush and the pride of life on his brow. He was beating time with his forefinger to an overture — for little Willie is a very great musician, and woe to those who deny it! As he sat thus, Prince Hohenlohe entered the box, and instantly the Kaiser’s face changed to gravity, and the two leant their heads together in earnest talk. Both glanced simultaneously at Stefan sitting in the stalls near by, and Stefan, looking up, was certain of this singular glance, and with beating, heart wondered what it could mean. He had not passed the age at which one blushes at an Emperor’s notice, and he blushed. Till near 10 his head was in a whirl, and then he slipped from the theatre, crossed two corridors, traversed the Ballzimmer, and tapped at a tapestry-shrouded door. Hohenlohe had anticipated him there. A voice called, Come in.

He found himself separated from the Prince by a table littered with documents, under a rather vague red light which swung from a vaulted roof. He made his lowest official bow, his high-bred face telling no secrets of the beating of his heart.

Prince Hohenlohe was buried deep in the perusal of official papers. Presently he looked up, and piercing the young man with his eye said —

Ah! von Reutlingen, so that is you. Allow me to congratulate you. By the way, how old are you?

Twenty-five, gasped Stefan.

Only twenty-five. Hum!

There was an awkward silence. Stefan resented it.

I take it, of course, resumed the Prince, that you are tolerably well acquainted with the minutiae of the Chino-Japanese affair so far?

That is so, your Highness.

And you know the general tenor of the secret proposals made by England to the Powers on that subject some little time since?

Certainly, your Highness.

It was not at the time deemed prudent that Germany should show any undue desire to interfere between the contending parties. But now the Emperor agrees with me in thinking that the time has come—

Really!

Listen. You owe it to your known tact and knowledge of affairs that you have been selected to undertake a task of the very gravest responsibility. On your acts and words, and even thoughts, will depend tremendous issues. And I feel certain you will enter on this mission with a due sense of its supreme importance.