or was thrown open and a manservant rushed in--pale,
confused, terror-stricken. He was a giant footman in the gorgeous livery
of the Alexis.

"Excellency," he stammered in Russian, "the castle is surrounded--they
will kill us--they will burn us out----"

He stopped abashed before Paul's pointing finger and stony face.

"Leave the room!" said Paul. "You forget yourself."

Through the open door-way to which Paul pointed peered the ashen faces
of other servants huddled together like sheep.

"Leave the room!" repeated Paul, and the man obeyed him, walking to the
door unsteadily with quivering chin. On the threshold he paused. Paul
stood pointing to the door. He had a poise of the head--some sudden
awakening of the blood that had coursed in the veins of hereditary
potentates. Maggie looked at him; she had never known him like this. She
had known the man, she had never encountered the prince.

The big clock over the castle boomed out the hour, and at the same
instant there arose a roar like the voice of the surf on a Malabar
shore. There was a crashing of glass almost in the room itself. Already
Steinmetz was drawing the curtains closer over the windows in order to
prevent the light from filtering through the interstices of the closed
shutters.

"Only stones," he said to Paul, with his grim smile; "it might have been
bullets."

As if in corroboration of his suggestion the sharp ring of more than one
fire-arm rang out above the dull roar of many voices.

Steinmetz crossed the room to where Etta was standing, white-lipped, by
the fire. Her clenched hand was gripping Maggie's wrist. She was half
hidden behind her cousin. Maggie was looking at Paul. Etta was obviously
conscious of Steinmetz's gaze and approach.

"I asked you before to tell me all you knew," he said. "You refused.
Will you do it now?"

Etta met his glance for a moment, shrugged her shoulders, and turned her
back on him. Paul was standing in the open door-way with his back turned
toward them--alone. The palace had never looked so vast as it did at
that moment--brilliantly lighted, gorgeous, empty.

Through the hail of blows on the stout doors, the rattle of stones at
the windows, the prince could hear yells of execration and the wild
laughter that is bred of destruction. He turned and entered the room.
His face was gray and terrible.

"They have no chance," he said, "of effecting an entrance by force; the
lower windows are barred. They have no ladde