rmans or the Danes, and I will obey
unflinchingly. But here you are asking me to defy all hell!"

The king wrenched the key from the custodian's shaking hand.

"I see clearly," he observed contemptuously, "that this concerns myself
alone."

And before any of his attendants could prevent him he flung the heavy
oaken door wide, and crossed the threshold, repeating the customary "With
God's help!"

His three attendants, impelled by a curiosity stronger than their fear,
and ashamed, perhaps, to abandon their sovereign, followed him.

The great hall blazed with the light of myriad torches. Heavy draperies
replaced the ancient tapestries on the walls with their woven figures.

Ranged along both sides of the apartment in the same order as of yore hung
the flags of Denmark, Germany, and the country of the Muscovite--trophies
taken in war by the soldiers of Gustavus Adolphus. But the Swedish flags
intermingled with the long array were swathed in funereal crape.

An immense concourse swarmed upon the serried rows of benches opposite the
throne. The members of the four Estates, garbed in black, were there, each
in his allotted place. And this multitude of gleaming visages against the
somber background so dazzled the eye that not one of the four beholders
could distinguish a familiar face among the throng. So is it with the
actor who fails to single out, in the confused mass of the crowded
audience, one person he knows.

On the raised dais of the throne, from which the king was wont to harangue
the assembly, they saw a bleeding corpse invested with the royal insignia.

At the right of this gruesome specter, crown on head, scepter in hand,
stood a child. At the left, an aged man, or fantom shade, leaned for
support against the throne. From his shoulders trailed the ceremonial
mantle worn by the ancient administrators of Sweden before Wasa made of
the government a monarchy.

Grave-visaged, austere men in flowing robes of black, evidently holding
the office of judges, were gathered near the throne around a table
littered with folios and parchments. Between the dais and the assembled
Estates the four spectators beheld an executioner's block, funereally
draped, and by its side the ax.

Of all that vast concourse of specters no single shade gave sign that the
presence of Charles and the three persons who accompanied him had been
observed. A confused murmur, in which the ear failed to detect any
articulate sound, greeted their