main throneroom in which the king was accustomed to hold court
with his entire retinue. A number of yellow-tunicked warriors sat
about upon the benches within the room. For the most part their
eyes were bent upon the floor and their attitudes that of moody
dejection. As the two women entered several glanced indifferently
at them, but for the most part no attention was paid to them.

While they were waiting in the anteroom there entered from another
apartment a young man uniformed similarly to the others with the
exception that upon his head was a fillet of gold, in the front of
which a single parrot feather rose erectly above his forehead. As
he entered, the other soldiers in the room rose to their feet.

"That is Metak, one of the king's sons," Xanila whispered to the
girl.

The prince was crossing the room toward the audience chamber when
his glance happened to fall upon Bertha Kircher. He halted in his
tracks and stood looking at her for a full minute without speaking.
The girl, embarrassed by his bold stare and her scant attire, flushed
and, dropping her gaze to the floor, turned away. Metak suddenly
commenced to tremble from head to foot and then, without warning
other than a loud, hoarse scream he sprang forward and seized the
girl in his arms.

Instantly pandemonium ensued. The two messengers who had been charged
with the duty of conducting the girl to the king's presence danced,
shrieking, about the prince, waving their arms and gesticulating
wildly as though they would force him to relinquish her, the
while they dared not lay hands upon royalty. The other guardsmen,
as though suffering in sympathy the madness of their prince, ran
forward screaming and brandishing their sabers.

The girl fought to release herself from the horrid embrace of the
maniac, but with his left arm about her he held her as easily as
though she had been but a babe, while with his free hand he drew
his saber and struck viciously at those nearest him.

One of the messengers was the first to feel the keen edge of
Metak's blade. With a single fierce cut the prince drove through
the fellow's collar bone and downward to the center of his chest.
With a shrill shriek that rose above the screaming of the other
guardsmen the man dropped to the floor, and as the blood gushed
from the frightful wound he struggled to rise once more to his feet
and then sank back again and died in a great pool of his own blood.

In the meantime Metak, still c