“I have a petition to present,” she said eagerly, disregarding the man’s rough humour. “I must give it into his hand.” “A petition? Let me see it.” Nadia gave it to him, and he scrutinised it carefully, upside-down, from the seal which the station-master’s wife had insisted on adding at the foot, in the idea that it gave the document an official appearance, to the loyal address at the head, turned it over, smelt it, and handed it back to her. He could not even read sufficiently to know that it was not in Thracian, but he was satisfied that it was not calculated to convey any harm to the King. “Yes, it’s all right,” he said. “You can throw it into the King’s carriage as you stand there. Or, if you are afraid of missing, I will throw it for you, if you will thrust it into my hand just at the moment, so that the sergeant may not see.” “Oh no, I must give it to him,” cried Nadia in a frenzy. The first carriage was close at hand now, and she saw that Caerleon was in it, sitting with his face to the horses, with Cyril and General Sertchaieff opposite him. “But you can’t,” said the trooper, with a grim smile. What possessed her to do it Nadia could never afterwards determine, but she snatched out her dagger and struck at him wildly. He parried the blow with the greatest ease, knocked the dagger out of her hand, and seized both her wrists in an iron grasp, crying-- “Help! Here’s a woman trying to murder the King!” “Holy Peter!” cried another, as Nadia struggled in vain to free herself. “Look at her white hands. She is a Scythian spy!” “A Scythian spy!” said another voice. “Kill her, then!” An officer of the escort had forced his horse into the group, about which the crowd was surging and shouting. Nadia became vaguely aware that the new-comer’s face was familiar to her, that his eyes were like her mother’s,--that he was her brother Louis. Madame O’Malachy’s words recurred to her mind, “Louis will not allow you to spoil his plans,” and as they did so, she saw that he had something in his hand. He raised it, and for one awful instant, which seemed an hour, she was looking down the barrel of a revolver. Her eyes were fixed on the little steel circle so close in front of them, but she saw Louis’s finger moving to the trigger, and a shrill scream of terror broke from her as she cowered back and raised her elbow to shield herself. The crack she was expecting came, sounding to her like a thunder-clap, and the crowd yelled excitedly, but the bullet sped harmlessly over her head, as the weapon was knocked up by the senior officer of the escort, who had caught her captor’s agonised cry of “Accomplices, lieutenant! she may have accomplices!”