Diotimos Library · Literary Fiction Collection · English Edition
The Keepers of the People
A Critical Edition of the 1898 Novel
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English Edition · Branch 152 of 254
Chapter VIII · Althea Asks a Boon · pp. 201–211
The Keepers of the People
p. 202Althea left her new friend, pleased but thoughtful. She understood why Prince Ralph was careless that his wife had broken with him. She went first to the workshops where the mute smiths forged sword-blades; and bade them make her a knife, small but with a heavy blade, and of a shape she judged most convenient for throwing. Then she went to the mid-day meal with Prince Ralph; and found Prince Raleigh with him. They were discussing some trouble that had arisen in one of the villages at the foot of the mountains in the North-West. A hysteric woman, a descendant of one of the priests who had been massacred by the first Prince, had revived a variant of the rites of Siva; and it seemed likely that there had been a human sacrifice. The headman of the district was not sure of this; but he was sure that the villagers were mad with a religious frenzy, which would assuredly spread to other villages if it were not dealt with at once. They talked of it, as they ate; Althea asked where the villagers had learned it. Prince Raleigh said: “They hand these things down, and down. A generation ago the land was full of them; but the easier life little by little destroyed them; and they only linger in the out of the way villages.”
“Yes,” said Prince Ralph; “the Varandals who live under the mountains do not laugh easily. The shadows lie long over the villages.”
“They work more too; the land is not so easy to till,” said Prince Raleigh.
“Well, we must seize the woman, and see that she speaks no more; she can dwell among the mutes,” said Prince Ralph.
“And if you execute two or three men, and flog a dozen, or better, a score, they will see their folly the plainer,” said Prince Raleigh.
“I will,” said Prince Ralph; “I think they will resist.”
“Yes, a few of them; and, twenty years ago, I would have sent three regiments against them, and shot the men, and burnt the village. But the people do not need so severe a lesson now,” said Prince Raleigh.
“No: a hundred horse will serve my turn,” said Prince Ralph.
“And what time do we start?” said Althea.
“You wish to go?” said Prince Ralph. “There will be fighting, and executions, and flogging.”
Socrates
Reading The Keepers of the People · Book II, Chapter VIII · Althea Asks a Boon · Book II, Chapter VIII · Althea Asks a Boon · pp. 201–211
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Edgar Jepson’s The Keepers of the People begins as a late-Victorian lost-kingdom romance and becomes an unsettling political argument. Ralph Falcon moves from an English country house to the hidden state of Varandaleel, where laughter, secrecy, violence, education, and the duties of rulers are tested against one another.
Historical Text
The novel was first published in London in 1898 by C. Arthur Pearson. This reading text follows the owner-supplied critical edition, whose copy-text is the Methuen Colonial Library issue of the same year digitised by the Internet Archive. The supplied editorial note records the edition’s corrections, normalisations, limits, and unresolved textual risks.
About This Edition
This English Edition preserves the complete supplied text and apparatus: the introduction, reading guide, key words, plot outline, editorial note, both books and all thirty chapters, and the end notes. Its reader branches end at paragraph boundaries, with the original chapter structure and chapter page references mapped to the 1898 printing.
Rights
Edgar Jepson’s 1898 novel is in the public domain. The introduction, reader’s guide, key words, outline, editorial note, notes, editorial arrangement, and design of the supplied edition are © 2026 Diotimos Editions.