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The fiercely whiskered premier made a speech of welcome. Still holding the hat that was too large for him, the little King bowed and replied:
"I thank you, Uzunovitch!"
"That's all now," whispered his mother and they got into the car and drove to Dedinje Palace, on a hill outside the city, through cheering lines of schoolchildren. There at home his brothers Princes Tomislav and Andreja were waiting for him. When the door was shut it was safe to cry.
All this time the body of Peter's murdered father was coming back from Marseilles on the light cruiser Dubrovnik, the same ship that had carried Alexander to France and to death. In a very simple coffin he lay. One of the last acts of Queen Marie before rushing to Paris to join her son was to have the admiral's uniform in which her husband was killed changed to the service dress of a Serbian general, in which he had spent most of his life. Nations hurried to do him honor. From Rome Benito Mussolini wired shore batteries to fire salutes as the little Dubrovnik passed through the narrow Straits of Messina. Four British and three French cruisers dropped anchor in the harbor of Split, hauled their flags to half-mast to await Alexander's homecoming.
From the palace of the Roman Emperor Diocletian high above the harbor floated a great black banner and other streamers of crepe hung from nearly every window in the town when the Dubrovnik came in with its sad freight. For a few hours King Alexander lay in state, before being carried to a special train and sent on a slow roundabout journey through the provinces of his enemies to his capital. At every important town the train made a brief pause, longest of all in Zagreb, capital of "rebellious Croatia." If any still hated Alexander they dared not show it.
Typical of the country's reaction was that of a Roman Catholic priest named Anton Koroshetz. As leader of the Slovenian People's Party Father Koroshetz has been interned on a Dalmatian island for almost two years. Last week he begged and obtained permission to go to Split "to say a prayer and drop a tear on the coffin of my king."
"We must forget the past," said Father Koroshetz. "We must work and live for Jugoslavia."