He smiled somewhat grimly at his own fanciful musings, and then, shutting the window, retired. The house was soon buried in profound silence and darkness, and over the city tuneful bells rang the half-hour after midnight. Four miles distant from the ‘quarter of the poor,’ and high above the clustering houses of the whole magnificent metropolis, the Royal palace towered whitely on its proud eminence in the glimmer of the moon, a stately pile of turrets and pinnacles; and on the battlements the sentries walked, pacing to and fro in regular march, with regular changes, all through the night hours. Half after midnight! ‘All’s well!’ Three-quarters, and still ‘All’s well’ sounded with the clash of steel and a tinkle of silvery chimes. One o’clock struck,--and the drifting clouds in heaven cleared fully, showing many brilliant stars in the western horizon,--and a sentry passing, as noiselessly as his armour and accoutrements would permit, along the walled battlement which protected and overshadowed the windows of the Queen’s apartments, paused in his walk to look with an approving eye at the clearing promise of the weather. As he did so, a tall figure, wrapped in a thick rain-cloak, suddenly made its unexpected appearance through a side door in the wall, and moved rapidly towards a turret which contained a secret passage leading to the Queen’s boudoir,--a private stairway which was never used save by the Royal family. The sentry gave a sharp warning cry. “Halt! Who goes there?” The figure paused and turned, dropping its cloak. The pale moonlight fell slantwise on the features, disclosing them fully. “T is I! The King!” The soldier recoiled amazed,--and quickly saluted. Before he could recover from his astonishment he was alone again. The battlement was empty, and the door to the turret-stairs,--of which only the King possessed the key,--was fast locked; and for the next hour or more the startled sentry remained staring at the skies in a sort of meditative stupefaction, with the words still ringing like the shock of an alarm-bell in his ears: “‘T is I! The King!” CHAPTER IX THE PREMIER’S SIGNET