inctly the
chamber below.

"Now pop down on your knees and take a peep at his Majesty."

[Illustration: HE LIFTED UP HIS THIN, SLENDER HAND, AND THERE CAME A
SILENCE OVER THE VAST CROWD IMMEDIATELY. [PAGE 47.]]

The Prince gazed eagerly down, into a large room, the largest room he
had ever beheld, with furniture and hangings grander than anything he
could have ever imagined. A sunbeam struck across the carpet and it
looked like a bed of flowers.

"Where is the King?" asked the puzzled boy.

"There," said Mag, pointing with one wrinkled claw to a magnificent bed,
large enough to contain six people. In the centre of it quite straight
and still with its head on the lace pillow lay a small figure, something
like waxwork, fast asleep. There were a number of sparkling rings on the
tiny yellow hands; the eyes were shut, and the nose looked sharp and
thin, and the long grey beard hid the mouth, and lay over the breast.
Two little flies buzzing about the curtains of the bed was the only
audible sound.

"Is that the King?" whispered Prince Dolor.

"Yes," replied the bird.

He had been angry ever since he learned how his uncle had taken the
crown and had felt as if, king as he was, he should like to strike him,
this great, strong wicked man.

Why, you might as well have struck a baby! How helpless he lay! with his
eyes shut, and his idle hands folded; they had no more work to do, bad
or good.

"What is the matter with him?" asked the Prince.

"He is dead," said the magpie with a croak.

No, there was not the least use in being angry with him now. On the
contrary, the Prince felt almost sorry for him.

"What shall we do now?" asked the magpie. "There's nothing much more to
be done with his Majesty, except a funeral. Suppose we float up again at
a safe distance and see it all. It will be such fun. There will be a
great row in the city and I wonder who we shall have in his place?"

"What will be fun?"

"A Revolution."

As soon as the Cathedral bell began to toll, and the minute guns to
fire, announcing to the Kingdom that it was without a king, the people
gathered in crowds. The murmur now and then rose into a shout, and the
shout into a roar. When Prince Dolor, quietly floating in the upper air,
caught the sound of their different and opposite cries, it seemed to him
as if the whole city had gone mad together.

"Long live the King!" "The King is dead--down with the King!" "Down with
the crown and the King too!