"Fire?" cried the king, casting a rapid glance upward at the dazzling glare lighting up every object in the room, and hurrying towards the curtained entrance, only to stagger backward into Lee's arms, overcome with the smoke and flame bursting from the heavy drapery as he lifted it. "No, no! great heavens! not that way!" shouted Lee. "Already the corridors have caught, and communication will be cut off. Come for your life;" and he dragged the half-breathless king across the room. "Here, by the private staircase!" "What private staircase?" demanded Charles, reeling forward after Lee, with his hand to his month. "I tell thee, man," he went on, in tones of anger as well as of fear, "there is no private stair--" "Come! come!" shouted his deliverer with a laugh of triumph which rang through the burning room, and he seized the king round the waist with both arms; "we are safe enough this way--as yet." "The dog! the dog!" cried the king, struggling in Lee's embrace, and pointing towards poor Médor, whose piteous yelpings resounded from the couch. [Illustration: LAWRENCE LEE SAVES THE KING] "Ay, come, then," said Lawrence, turning, and catching up the little animal with one hand, he thrust it into his pocket. Then tightening his clutch upon the king, he dragged him to a square hole in the side of the wainscoted wall as yet untouched by the flames, and almost flung him down on his knees as with a vigorous push he thrust him through the aperture. "What is the meaning of this, sirrah?" angrily demanded the king, as, after a maddening interval passed in stumbling and sliding through pitch darkness encircled by Lee's arms, he went round and round, down and down, as if in some hideous nightmare dream, till at last his feet were safely deposited on level ground, and his shoulders against a rough stone wall, which struck ice cold through his silken dressing-gown. "Say! what does it all mean?" [Sidenote: Fire on the brain.] "Fire! fire! your majesty," was all Lawrence could find breath to articulate, as, reeling from the weight of his burden, he advanced towards a lamp whose rays sufficed dimly to reveal a low stone vaulted roof, supported by thick pillars, whose outlines loomed ghost-like through the obscurity. "The palace is on fire;" and catching up the lamp, and again seizing the king, this time, however, only by the arm and with a more gentle grip, he succeeded in dragging him a few paces farther. "This way! this way--" "No," said the king, wrenching himself free, and coming to a dead standstill with his back resolutely planted against the wall! "I'll go no farther; not a yard. 'Tis some plot," he added, casting suspicious looks round from Lee's face to the darkness visible, and then again to the eager agitated countenance of the young man. "Some scurvy plot. Villain!" he cried, suddenly seizing Lawrence by the throat. "How many are there of you? Speak!"