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 191 of 254
Chapter XIII · The Russians Go · pp. 258–273
The Keepers of the People
p. 267In the still darkness the little group on the tower were also filled with an oppressive foreboding; they watched for an hour or two, with little to say. The sharpshooters had driven the Russian outposts to within a mile of the camp; the bustle on the ramparts had stilled. Then Ruth and Althea came down, and went to their beds. They lay on them dressed as they were; and Althea was falling asleep when the curtain between the two rooms was thrust aside, and Ruth came in.
“I cannot sleep; I am too anxious,” she said coming to the bedside, and kneeling down.
“There is no need to be anxious,” said Althea. “If things go wrong, I shall kill you all right; and it won’t matter.”
“I believe you would be glad to do it,” said Ruth a little fretfully.
“Who knows?” said Althea, looking at her with a strange smile.
“You are grown a very hard-hearted child,” said Ruth.
“Poor Ruth,” said Althea, stroking her hair.
They were silent; little by little their heavy eyelids began to sink; Ruth drooped forward and forward, and fell gently asleep with her head on the pillow beside the sleeping Althea.
An hour past midnight a crashing roar of a battery of guns dashed them from their sleep; they sprang to their feet and stared at one another with wild eyes.
“At last!” cried Althea, laughing fiercely.
“But Ralph! Fighting in the dark!” gasped Ruth with her hand on her heart.
“We may leave him to the fortune of the Princes of Varandaleel! Come!” cried Althea catching her hand; and they rushed for the tower.
Socrates
Reading The Keepers of the People · Book II, Chapter XIII · The Russians Go · Book II, Chapter XIII · The Russians Go · pp. 258–273
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.