he fields, the trees, and the distant landscape
kindled to flame, and the trumpet-major, backed by a lilac shadow as tall
as a steeple, blazed in the rays like a very god of war.

It was half-past three o'clock. A short time after, a rattle of horses
and wheels reached their ears from the quarter in which they gazed, and
there appeared upon the white line of road a moving mass, which presently
ascended the hill and drew near.

Then there arose a huzza from the few knots of watchers gathered there,
and they cried, 'Long live King Jarge!' The cortege passed abreast. It
consisted of three travelling-carriages, escorted by a detachment of the
German Legion. Anne was told to look in the first carriage--a
post-chariot drawn by four horses--for the King and Queen, and was
rewarded by seeing a profile reminding her of the current coin of the
realm; but as the party had been travelling all night, and the spectators
here gathered were few, none of the royal family looked out of the
carriage windows. It was said that the two elder princesses were in the
same carriage, but they remained invisible. The next vehicle, a coach
and four, contained more princesses, and the third some of their
attendants.

'Thank God, I have seen my King!' said Mrs. Garland, when they had all
gone by.

Nobody else expressed any thankfulness, for most of them had expected a
more pompous procession than the bucolic tastes of the King cared to
indulge in; and one old man said grimly that that sight of dusty old
leather coaches was not worth waiting for. Anne looked hither and
thither in the bright rays of the day, each of her eyes having a little
sun in it, which gave her glance a peculiar golden fire, and kindled the
brown curls grouped over her forehead to a yellow brilliancy, and made
single hairs, blown astray by the night, look like lacquered wires. She
was wondering if Festus were anywhere near, but she could not see him.

Before they left the ridge they turned their attention towards the Royal
watering-place, which was visible at this place only as a portion of the
sea-shore, from which the night-mist was rolling slowly back. The sea
beyond was still wrapped in summer fog, the ships in the roads showing
through it as black spiders suspended in the air. While they looked and
walked a white jet of smoke burst from a spot which the miller knew to be
the battery in front of the King's residence, and then the report of guns
reached their ear