Are you ready?"

A thunderous blow shook the door. Another and another fell on lock and
hinges.

"Felix!" said Alec, turning from Joan and stooping over the hunchback.

"Don't bother me, I am busy," growled the Pole.

"But we must act. We are done for now, and Joan must be saved. I mean to
draw the enemy's fire. When I am hit, you and Beaumanoir must take Joan
to the third window over there--take her by force if necessary----"

"My good Alec, at present you are a King without power. Please don't
talk nonsense. Keep in your corner, pacify Joan, and leave the rest to
me."

"Felix," and Alec's tone grew curt and sharp, "this is no time for jest!
Look, you madman, the door is splitting! Is Joan to die, then, to please
your whim? Either attend to me or stand aside!"

Poluski groaned. He was such an amalgam of contrarieties that he hated
the notion of explaining to a monarch the subtle means he had devised
for ridding the world of its unpopular rulers. Where Alec was concerned,
the bomb ought to remain a trade secret, so to speak. He would not have
trusted even Beaumanoir with its properties had he not known that his
own nerve would fail at the critical moment. For that was Felix
Poluski's weakness. He could not use his diabolical invention--an
anarchist in theory, in practice he would not harm a fly.

"I think just as much of Joan as you!" he blazed back at the pallid man
whose next step promised to lead to the grave. "I am King here, not you!
Keep yourself and Joan out of harm's way, and don't interfere! Stand
flat against the wall, both of you! Back, I say! There is the first
axhead! Now you, who were born a lord, be ready to lord it over these
groundlings!"

He whirled round on Beaumanoir, and Alec saw in his friend's hand some
object, what he could not guess, while Felix carried a similar article
in reserve, as it were. The little man's earnestness was so convincing
that the King could not choose but believe that some scheme that offered
salvation was in train. But it might fail! The door might be forced
before his own desperate alternative could be adopted, and the
consequences to Joan of failure were too horrible to be risked. A panel
shivered into splinters and the muzzles of two revolvers frowned through
the aperture.

"Wait!" bellowed Poluski; for Beaumanoir's hand was raised.

Lord Adalbert did more than wait. With the quickness born of many a
hard won victory on the polo ground, his free left hand fl