gasp and point her hand
frantically after the fleeing man, but at once her gentlemen, drawing
their swords, rushed in a body from the room with cries of
"Treason--treason! Stop him! Catch him!"

Down the main hallway and out into the silent court-yard Droop fled on
the wings of fear, pursued by a shouting throng, growing every moment
larger.

As he emerged into the yard a sentry tried to stop him, but, with a
single side spring, the Yankee eluded this danger and flung himself
upon his bicycle, which he found leaning against the palace wall.

"Close the gates! Trap him!" was the cry, and the ponderous iron gates
swung together with a clang. But just one second before they closed, the
narrow bicycle, with its terror-stricken burden, slipped through into
the street beyond and turned sharply to the west, gaining speed every
instant. Droop had escaped for the moment, and now bent every effort
upon reaching the Panchronicon in safety.

Then, as the tumult of futile chase faded into silence behind the
straining fugitive, there might have been seen whirling through the
ancient streets of London a weird and wondrous vision.

Perched on a whirl of spokes gleaming in the moonlight, a lean black
figure in rumpled hose, with flying cloak, slipped ghostlike through the
narrow streets at incredible speed. Many a footpad or belated townsman,
warned by the mystic tinkle of a spectral bell, had turned with a start,
to faint or run at sight of this uncanny traveller.

His hat was gone and his close-cropped head bent low over the
handle-bars. The skin-tight stockings had split from thigh to heel, mud
flew from the tires, beplastering the luckless figure from nape to
waist, and still, without pause, he pushed onward, ever onward, for
London Bridge, for Southwark, and for safety. The way was tortuous, dark
and unfamiliar, but it was for life or death, and Copernicus Droop was
game.

CHAPTER XV

HOW REBECCA RETURNED TO NEWINGTON

Within the palace all was confusion and dismay. Only a very few knew the
cause of this riot which had burst so suddenly upon the wonted peace of
the place, and those few never in all their lives gave utterance to what
they had learned.

Within the presence chamber Elizabeth lay on the floor in a swoon,
surrounded by her women only. Among these was Rebecca, whose one thought
was now to devise some plan for overtaking Droop. From the window she
had witnessed his flight, and she had guessed his dest