The Prince gazed eagerly down, into a large room, the largest room he had ever beheld, with furniture and hangings grander than anything he could have ever imagined. A sunbeam struck across the carpet and it looked like a bed of flowers. "Where is the King?" asked the puzzled boy. "There," said Mag, pointing with one wrinkled claw to a magnificent bed, large enough to contain six people. In the centre of it quite straight and still with its head on the lace pillow lay a small figure, something like waxwork, fast asleep. There were a number of sparkling rings on the tiny yellow hands; the eyes were shut, and the nose looked sharp and thin, and the long grey beard hid the mouth, and lay over the breast. Two little flies buzzing about the curtains of the bed was the only audible sound. "Is that the King?" whispered Prince Dolor. "Yes," replied the bird. He had been angry ever since he learned how his uncle had taken the crown and had felt as if, king as he was, he should like to strike him, this great, strong wicked man. Why, you might as well have struck a baby! How helpless he lay! with his eyes shut, and his idle hands folded; they had no more work to do, bad or good. "What is the matter with him?" asked the Prince. "He is dead," said the magpie with a croak. No, there was not the least use in being angry with him now. On the contrary, the Prince felt almost sorry for him. "What shall we do now?" asked the magpie. "There's nothing much more to be done with his Majesty, except a funeral. Suppose we float up again at a safe distance and see it all. It will be such fun. There will be a great row in the city and I wonder who we shall have in his place?" "What will be fun?" "A Revolution." As soon as the Cathedral bell began to toll, and the minute guns to fire, announcing to the Kingdom that it was without a king, the people gathered in crowds. The murmur now and then rose into a shout, and the shout into a roar. When Prince Dolor, quietly floating in the upper air, caught the sound of their different and opposite cries, it seemed to him as if the whole city had gone mad together. "Long live the King!" "The King is dead--down with the King!" "Down with the crown and the King too!" "Hurrah for the Republic!" "Hurrah for no government at all." Such were the shouts which came up to him and then began, oh! what a scene! The country was in a revolution. Soldiers were shooting down people by hundreds in the streets, scaffolds were being erected, heads dropping off, houses burned, and women and children murdered. Prince Dolor saw it all. Things happened so fast after one another that he nearly lost his senses. "Oh, let me go home," he cried at last, stopping his ears and shutting his eyes, "only let me go home!" for even his lonely tower and its dreariness and silence, was absolute paradise after this. Prince Dolor fell into a kind of swoon and when he awoke he found himself in his own room. CHAPTER VIII.