"By the Queen's command, Colonel Anderson stole these papers from the Chancellor's office. He was shot down, Sydney was captured, Browne surrendered. By accident the message passed to me." "And the police are waiting outside that door for you?" "I am an outlaw," Brand laughed, "and here in sanctuary." For a long time her Majesty remained silent, while the ante-room shook with the tremor of music, and the glow from the stage shone softly between the curtains. The performance was an oratorio based by Mr. Stevenson upon the Divine Comedy of Dante, but in accordance with a usage still new in 1980 both vocalists and chorus stood in the wings of the proscenium, supported by the orchestra, and a concealed cathedral organ. For the oratorio was rendered in the music of colour upon a screen, and Stevenson's "Inferno" is notable for the dim, awful beauty of its opening numbers, and for passages of terrible splendour. For an hour there was no word spoken in the ante-room, while the light changed and glowed between the curtains, and the great chorus swelled and rolled from the proscenium. At last, with a little sigh, Margaret looked up. "Tell me, Mr. Brand, what shall I do?" "Who am I," said Brand, with reverence, "that I should dare give counsel to the Queen?" "At the risk of your life you came to warn me." "That the Chancellor has committed treason; that I am a rebel in open revolt, that war has been waged to-night, blood has been shed. This very house is guarded by my yacht." Margaret was silent. "How shall I dare advise the Queen?" said Brand. "I have come to offer my life and all the strength of Lyonesse to defend my sovereign and my adopted country. I dare not advise, but weigh the facts, Queen Margaret, and let me hold the scales. As head of the State you must decide for England. There is no compromise, no middle way. Denounce the Chancellor of Treason, or commit me a rebel to prison." Margaret leaned forward, her hands resting upon the arms of the chair, her eyes full of wonder. "And you will submit?" "Am I not the Queen's servant?" "But they'll kill you." "Should I care to live?" His manner was changed, the roughness was all gone, as after a storm the ocean is at rest, deep, quiet, fathomless. His eyes seemed to smile, and his voice was low and reverent. "Perhaps I am wrong, but I should not live to see this country a vassal of Russia. My people at Lyonesse and I have always worked for England, and we all have a certain pride in working well. Set that aside, my life is not the weight in either scale of the Queen's judgment. Who will serve England best, Ulster or Brand, the traitor or--the rebel?" "What if I refuse," said the Queen, proudly, "to treat you as a rebel? What if I, the Queen, share the guilt of rebellion with you, and place myself at the head of this revolt?" "There will be civil war," Brand answered coldly, dispassionately, "the most terrible war in all the annals of the world."