delightfulrelief to the present tension to arrest this chatterer

forthwith. He might be killed perhaps. What?
The king was repeating his observation. 'They have a ridiculous

fancy that your confidence is based on the possession of atomic
bombs.'

King Ferdinand Charles pulled himself together. He protested.
'Oh, quite so,' said the ex-king, 'quite so.'

'What grounds?' The ex-king permitted himself a gesture and the
ghost of a chuckle--why the devil should he chuckle? 'Practically

none,' he said. 'But of course with these things one has to be
so careful.'

And then again for an instant something--like the faintest shadow
of derision--gleamed out of the envoy's eyes and recalled that

chilly feeling to King Ferdinand's spine.
Some kindreddepression had come to Pestovitch, who had been

watching the drawn intensity of Firmin's face. He came to the
help of his master, who, he feared, might protest too much.

'A search!' cried the king. 'An embargo on our aeroplanes.'
'Only a temporary expedient,' said the ex-king Egbert, 'while the

search is going on.'
The king appealed to his council.

'The people will never permit it, sire,' said a bustling little
man in a gorgeous uniform.

'You'll have to make 'em,' said the ex-king, genially addressing
all the councillors.

King Ferdinand glanced at the closed brass door through which no
news would come.

'When would you want to have this search?'
The ex-king was radiant. 'We couldn't possibly do it until the

day after to-morrow,' he said.
'Just the capital?'

'Where else?' asked the ex-king, still more cheerfully.
'For my own part,' said the ex-king confidentially, 'I think the

whole business ridiculous. Who would be such a fool as to hide
atomic bombs? Nobody. Certain hanging if he's caught--certain,

and almost certain blowing up if he isn't. But nowadays I have to
take orders like the rest of the world. And here I am.'

The king thought he had never met such detestable geniality. He
glanced at Pestovitch, who nodded almost imperceptibly. It was

well, anyhow, to have a fool to deal with. They might have sent a
diplomatist. 'Of course,' said the king, 'I recognise the

overpowering force--and a kind of logic--in these orders from
Brissago.'

'I knew you would,' said the ex-king, with an air of relief, 'and
so let us arrange----'

They arranged with a certain informality. No Balkan aeroplane
was to adventure into the air until the search was concluded, and

meanwhile the fleets of the world government would soar and
circle in the sky. The towns were to be placarded with offers of

reward to any one who would help in the discovery of atomic
bombs....

'You will sign that,' said the ex-king.
'Why?'

'To show that we aren't in any way hostile to you.'
Pestovitch nodded 'yes' to his master.

'And then, you see,' said the ex-king in that easy way of his,
'we'll have a lot of men here, borrow help from your police, and

run through all your things. And then everything will be over.
Meanwhile, if I may be your guest....' When presently Pestovitch

was alone with the king again, he found him in a state of
jangling emotions. His spirit was tossing like a wind-whipped

sea. One moment he was exalted and full of contempt for 'that
ass' and his search; the next he was down in a pit of dread.

'They will find them, Pestovitch, and then he'll hang us.'
'Hang us?'

The king put his long nose into his councillor's face. 'That
grinning brute WANTS to hang us,' he said. 'And hang us he will,

if we give him a shadow of a chance.'
'But all their Modern State Civilisation!'

'Do you think there's any pity in that crew of Godless,
Vivisecting Prigs?' cried this last king of romance. 'Do you

think, Pestovitch, they understand anything of a high ambition or
a splendid dream? Do you think that our gallant and sublime

adventure has any appeal to them? Here am I, the last and
greatest and most romantic of the Caesars, and do you think they

will miss the chance of hanging me like a dog if they can,
killing me like a rat in a hole? And that renegade! He who was

once an anointed king! . . .
'I hate that sort of eye that laughs and keeps hard,' said the

king.
'I won't sit still here and be caught like a fascinated rabbit,'

said the king in conclusion. 'We must shift those bombs.'
'Risk it,' said Pestovitch. 'Leave them alone.'

'No,' said the king. 'Shift them near the frontier. Then while
they watch us here--they will always watch us here now--we can

buy an aeroplaneabroad, and pick them up....'
The king was in a feverish, irritable mood all that evening, but

he made his plans nevertheless with infinitecunning. They must
get the bombs away; there must be a couple of atomic hay lorries,

the bombs could be hidden under the hay.... Pestovitch went and
came, instructing trusty servants, planning and replanning....

The king and the ex-king talked very pleasantly of a number of
subjects. All the while at the back of King Ferdinand Charles's

mind fretted the mystery of his vanished aeroplane. There came no
news of its capture, and no news of its success. At any moment

all that power at the back of his visitor might crumble away and
vanish....

It was past midnight, when the king, in a cloak and slouch hat
that might equally have served a small farmer, or any respectable

middle-class man, slipped out from an inconspicuous service gate
on the eastward side of his palace into the thickly wooded

gardens that sloped in a series of terraces down to the town.
Pestovitch and his guard-valet Peter, both wrapped about in a

similar disguise, came out among the laurels that bordered the
pathway and joined him. It was a clear, warm night, but the stars

seemed unusually little and remote because of the aeroplanes,
each trailing a searchlight, that drove hither and thither across

the blue. One great beam seemed to rest on the king for a moment
as he came out of the palace; then instantly and reassuringly it

had swept away. But while they were still in the palace gardens
another found them and looked at them.

'They see us,' cried the king.
'They make nothing of us,' said Pestovitch.

The king glanced up and met a calm, round eye of light, that
seemed to wink at him and vanish, leaving him blinded....

The three men went on their way. Near the little gate in the
garden railings that Pestovitch had caused to be unlocked, the

king paused under the shadow of an flex and looked back at the
place. It was very high and narrow, a twentieth-century rendering

of mediaevalism, mediaevalism in steel and bronze and sham stone
and opaque glass. Against the sky it splashed a confusion of

pinnacles. High up in the eastward wing were the windows of the
apartments of the ex-king Egbert. One of them was brightly lit

now, and against the light a little black figure stood very still
and looked out upon the night.

The king snarled.
'He little knows how we slip through his fingers,' said