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 153 of 254
Chapter VIII · Althea Asks a Boon · pp. 201–211
The Keepers of the People
p. 204“I don’t mind the fighting,” said Althea. “I think I shall like it. I do not like the executions and the flogging; but I should like to get used to them.”
“Very good. Come to dinner in your riding-dress; we shall start as soon as it is over. We have many miles to ride; and we must arrive with our horses fresh,” said Prince Ralph. “By the way, I wonder if they have much ammunition? Bid Colonel Sayers come to me,” he said to one of the mutes.
“It would be better to use only the sword” said Prince Raleigh.
“Yes; but the men shall take their rifles. They need not use them,” said Prince Ralph.
Colonel Sayers came quickly, and told them that the month’s ammunition for range practice had not yet been served out to the district; and it was not likely that there were a dozen rounds in the whole of it.
“Then we shall only use our swords,” said Prince Ralph.
In the afternoon Althea took her sword to the workshops and had it sharpened; she cleaned her rifle and revolver herself; and came to dinner in her riding-dress. At dinner the talk was all of the persistence of religious traditions, and how the more sombre of them perished only when life grew very easy.
Prince Ralph and Althea left the great hall as soon as dinner was ended; their horses were waiting before the door, the hundred horsemen, mutes, outside the palace gates. He lifted her into the saddle, put himself at their head, and they set out. For the first few miles Althea’s heart was all a-flutter; then it grew quiet, and filled with a gentle eagerness for action.
The night was light; the clear moon shone very brightly; and they rode at an easy canter, stopping every five miles to breathe their horses. Now and again Prince Ralph said a word to her; now and again he shouted, when the white gleam of a dress ahead showed him a pair of lovers wandering along the high-road, or when they came to a village street thronged with people.
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.