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 228 of 254
Chapter XVII · The Last Path · pp. 317–330
The Keepers of the People
p. 329Presently he stood in the threshold; and she flung herself on her knees before him, holding out the child, and crying, “A boon, O Prince! A boon!”
Prince Ralph looked from the living woman to the dead with unmoved eyes, and said quietly, “Ask it.”
“Slay me with your own hand, O Prince, with your own hand,” cried Latchimi.
Prince Ralph looked from her to the dead woman again, and said quietly, “No: there is no slaying.”
He was silent, weighing the matter; and Latchimi, freed from the fear of death, crouched down awaiting his judgment. Presently he looked at her, and said in a tone faintly sorrowful, “No; there is no slaying; the woman had disobeyed. But, foolish child, you have slain a Princess of Varandaleel; therefore you shall speak no more, but dwell among the silent ones, and it may be, marry one of them.”
Latchimi’s bowed head drooped lower, and she said faintly, “For my speech, O Prince, I make no prayer; but I am yours and none other’s.”
“You are mine no more,” said Prince Ralph sadly. “The dead woman was my wife; and it may not be.”
Latchimi rose slowly; kissed the child fondly; and laid it on the divan.
She stood and gazed at Prince Ralph with wide, devouring eyes, as one might look the last, impressing look at a dear one dead. Then she said, in the touching, girlish note of their first meeting, “Farewell, O Prince, my beloved — farewell. There — is — no — place — for me — any more — in Varandaleel.”
She turned that he might not see what she did, and prevent it; drew the dagger from her girdle; thrust it slowly, as though the pain were her last delight, into her breast; and sank down, turning her head, even in the agony to smile at her lover with passionate, adoring eyes.
Prince Ralph stepped swiftly forward, his hand outstretched arresting, too late; raised her and laid her on the divan; and kissed her lips as her life quivered out of them. He stood a while looking down on her with sad eyes; said softly, “Brave child;” turned, and without a glance at his dead wife, left the Pavilion of Wonderful Delights.
Socrates
Reading The Keepers of the People · Book II, Chapter XVII · The Last Path · Book II, Chapter XVII · The Last Path · pp. 317–330
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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.