too
late, perhaps I can also save the Prince."

"Ay, we will take you to him fast enough, if you will call off your
growling beasts," said the Captain.

"Nay, we must all go together," answered John, who saw how they meant
to trap him. "Oh, come, let us be moving, for there is no time to
lose!"

Grumbling, but afraid either to delay or to venture near John, the
guards formed in a hollow square about him and his pets, and they all
began to march in a strange company through the city streets to the
palace.

A crowd gathered as they passed. Men, women, and children craned their
necks to look at this group of animals, such as had not been seen in
the city for years. They gazed, too, at the handsome yellow-haired
boy, and whispered among themselves, "Who is he? What has he done?"

John noticed that the faces of the people who gazed at him were set and
hard. They seemed sad and hopeless. He pitied them. "It is a kingdom
without love," he said to himself.

Yet, as they looked, their faces changed. A new something came into
their eyes. A whispering went around among the crowd, increasing to a
murmur, like the sound of bees.

They came at last to the palace, where the crowd was forced to pause.
But, surrounded by the band of soldiers, John and his party went in and
on, led by the Captain himself, at whose word or gesture doors flew
open and servants bowed.

Through long, glittering halls, lined with mirrors in which their rags
and dust, draggled feathers and matted hair showed pitifully, limped
John and his weary friends. Up a grand marble staircase, with
wondering footmen lining either side, pattered on muddy feet Brutus and
his gray brother, and the bear, clumsily erect at John's side. Behind
mewed the tired Blanche, whose kittens John carried in his arms, while
the carrier pigeon and the raven perched on his shoulder. But the
other birds had remained outside in the trees of the palace garden.

XXI

THE PALACE

At last they came to a great hall, full of people who seemed met for
some solemn purpose. At the door stood the Grand Chamberlain in lace
and velvet, holding in one hand his staff, and in the other an
hourglass at which he was gazing earnestly.

"What is this?" he said sternly, as the Captain approached with his
prisoners. "Do you not know that this is a moment of life and death?"

In a few whispered words the Captain explained matters.

The Chamberlain stared sullenly at John. "N