Page:Frank Stockton - Vizier of the two-horned Alexander.djvu/225

TWO-HORNED ALEXANDER of soldiers and attendants, and should go as her ambassador.

"The journey was a long and a slow one, but I was rather glad of it, for it gave me an opportunity to ponder over the most ambitious scheme I have ever formed in the whole course of my life."

"Greater than to be autocrat of all the Russias?" exclaimed Mrs. Crowder.

"Yes," he replied. "That opportunity came to me suddenly, and I accepted it; I did not plan it out and work for it. Besides, it could be only a transitory thing. But what now occupied me was a grand idea, the good effects of which, if it should be carried out, might endure for centuries. It was simply this:

"I had become greatly attached to the young queen widow whose cause I had espoused. I had spent more than a month with her in the castle at Canossa, and there I learned to know her well and to love her. She was, indeed, a most admirable woman and charming in every way. She appeared to place the most implicit trust in me; told me of all her affairs, and asked my opinion