Treason
Treason. By A. L. Hayward. (Cassell. 10s. 6d.)
MR. ILivivaitn's interest in treason is purely that of a story- teller, and to make up this volume he has chosen from the well-stocked annals of history fifteen of the stories that please him best. These plots and conspiracies are as varied in their intentions as in their protagonists, but only those readers will quarrel with Mr. Hayward's selection or with his style of writing who are out to draw conclusions about the pathology of idealism. For there is no possible affinity between Sir Roger Casement and Kunz von Kaufungen, whose attempted abduction of two fifteenth-century German princelings was frustrated by some honest charcoal burners. And the net is cast even wider than that—wide enough to include some account of Mrs. Wheeldon's attempt to poison Mr. Lloyd George as well as of the Gowrie rough house in which James VI of Scotland nearly lost his life.
King Alexander and Queen Drags of Servia are also present, and Mr. Hayward, very properly for his purpose, ignores the controversy as to whether it was he or she who gave their hiding place away by crying out for help, and concen- trates on the more obviously picturesque features of the assassination, culminating with Alexander's prolonged agony among the flower beds. Another royal assassination that interests him is that of Alexander II of Russia, and he describes carefully what the Czar looked like just after the fatal bomb had been thrown. On the whole the plots that were unsuc- cessful make better reading, although one or two of the English ones, such as the Cato Street conspiracy and Colonel Desparcl'a plot, are a little depressing. But Mr. Hayward never deserts his traitors this side of the gallows and most of them die bravely. General Malet, for instance, who nearly succeeded in stealing France from Napoleon, insisted, as the senior officer present, on commanding his own execution squad and still had breath enough to call up the reserves when they bungled the job at the first attempt.
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