At the head of the staircase, followed more closely now by the Duke, the King turned into the little withdrawing room, from which the huge windows, above the main entrance of the palace, opened. The windows had been flung wide open. The King crossed the room, and stepped through the windows out on to the stone balcony, above the main entrance. A great roar of cheers, a wild waving of flags and hands, from which he all but recoiled, greeted his appearance. The Duke halted, behind him, out of sight, just inside the windows-- For the next twenty or thirty minutes, save for brief rests in a chair, placed in readiness for him in the little withdrawing room behind him, the King was out on the balcony, bareheaded, in the blazing noon sunshine, smiling and bowing in acknowledgment of the wild enthusiasm of the crowd. The people were insatiable. Over and over again, when he sought to prolong his all too short rests in the little room behind him, he was compelled to return to the balcony, in response to the insistent, the tumultuous demands of the crowd. Once or twice, he made the Duke appear on the balcony, at his side. But the people clearly preferred his solitary appearances-- The little room behind him gradually filled. A number of the more important Court officials, and certain privileged members of the household staff, gathered there, and stood in little groups, well back from the windows. Once, as he threw himself into his chair, a tall, distinguished looking, grey-haired man, whom he recognized dully as his physician, detached himself from one of these little groups, approached him, held his pulse for a moment, and then, without speaking, handed him a glassful of some colourless stimulant which he drank, although it made no impression whatever on his palate. Later, back in the glaring sunlight on the balcony once again, he was conscious of the help of the physician's draught. His senses were quickened. He felt less fatigued. But he knew, as the roar of the seething crowd round the palace came up to him once more, that this would have to be one of the last of his appearances. For a little longer, he could hold out, using the factitious energy with which the stimulant had temporarily endowed him. Then must come collapse-- At that moment, there was a sudden movement down below in the quadrangle. A man, who seemed to dart out from amongst a little knot of men in civilian dress, on the left, just inside the quadrangle railings, a man on whose breast war medals glittered in the sun, dashed across the quadrangle, towards the main entrance of the palace. The King watched him idly, curiously-- Suddenly, the man's right arm swung up, once, twice-- Then the King felt himself caught up, violently, from behind. Flung, bodily, back from the balcony, through the huge open windows, he fell, heavily, on the floor of the little room within. The windows were blocked now by a familiar tall figure, by a pair of familiar, broad shoulders--