THE CHARIOT OF THE SUN (continued 4)

The gangway crashed home. Nine hundred feet in length, dwarfing the lofty Palace with her bulk, all gleaming steel aglow in the sunset light, the Golden Hind with one faint tremor spurned the ground away. She rose from her couch upon the shattered trees, slow lifting, while the glass of all her ports, tier upon tier, glittered and flashed like rubies.

Dismissed from their ranks, the Guardsmen clustered about the columns of the porch, watched the great ship go up.

Then Dymoke spoke to the officer and the rest. "Lords and gentlemen of the Guard, I have a message to you which Sydney left me. The Dictator threatened our Lady's life, and goes to meet his death at the hands of his son. My friend was too knightly a man even to take her token on such a quest." He showed them our Lady's glove. "He dies for the Queen and for his honour."

The rising ship was already far aloft.

"He has destroyed the Golden Hind!"

The ship at terrific speed whirled upward into the heavens.

Then Dymoke, removing his helmet, spoke to the others for "our dear brother departed. He asks us to pray for him."

With bared heads they waited, these, my Lord's comrades, watching the ship, which like a blood-red star, glowed in the heights, and vanished even as the sparks fly upward.

May we all have strength at the last to serve as you served, to die as you died, Lord Sydney!

XVII HER MAJESTY IN COUNCIL

The sun was rising, the keen still air had a tang of smoke from one or two parishes sacked and burned over-night. Under the barricaded windows of St. Stephen's Palace a starving street arab was at work with a few grains of banana meal and a string noose, trying to snare a pigeon. A man watched him furtively from beside one of the buttresses of the Abbey. That man had been a barrister before the World-Storm, now he was a tramp, and his coat was buttoned up because his underclothes had been sold for a meal. All night he had been with a crowd in the Strand wrecking the hotels in search of food. A dog or two had been dragged out of the flames, and torn to pieces; but the barrister won not so much as a taste of the blood, because some stronger desperadoes charged in a body and carried the food away. Now the Savoy district was a smouldering furnace, and the barrister watched the street arab, intending robbery if the lad got meat.

Something caught his wandering attention; the body of a man, which lay at the base of the statue of Richard Cœur de Lion, out in the bare paved square. The barrister stole across from the Abbey, but when he bent over the man, hoping for plunder, he found he had made a mistake. The supposed corpse proved to be alive, and remarked that he had nothing worth stealing.

The barrister shrank back, smiling vaguely. "Watching that boy in the hope of a pigeon, eh?"

"No," said the other; "it's better to rest and not use up one's tissue. That's economy."

The barrister sat down beside him, produced a pipe, and demanded tobacco.

The other shook his head, but the lawyer thought that a little friendly conversation might win him a fill for his pipe. So he looked at the starving wretch beside him.

"Oxford?" he ventured.

"Yes, Brasenose. Are you a college man, too?"

"Dublin," said the barrister. "I was a novelist."

"I was a curate; I used to preach about the Day of Judgment—but d'you know, it's quite different. The canonists never suggested that it would last so long, but it's extremely interesting, and I'm planning a work on contemporary Eschatology."

"Judgment be blowed," the barrister snorted, "it's the usual cause and effect, machinery broken down—passengers hungry. I'm beastly pinched."

"Are you really?" The curate still had a trace of his pulpit manner. "Now that is most curious. My hunger has gone away quite, but if my mind seems to wander pray correct me. Am I talking nonsense now?"

"No; what was your last meal?"

"A portion of rat," said the parson, smiling at the pleasant suggestion of memory. "But my landlady has taken to improper courses, led away, poor thing, by her daughter. She has joined one of the cannibal clubs. I felt that she was becoming untrustworthy, and withdrew to the streets."

The barrister laughed wearily. "My wife and children—" he said; "I shot them last night—well—who cares?"

"How shocking," said the curate. "Hope," he continued, "is dead, and our prayers break upon the brazen echoing heavens. Who would have supposed that the world would die so hard?"

"Don't preach," said the barrister, "it makes me sick."

The curate looked up with a vacant stare at the towering heights of the Abbey. From far away came the rumble of the organ, for this was the time for the early Celebration. By the calendar it was Monday, the Twelfth Day of the Terror.

"I think I could have hoped," the parson wiped a tear away with his torn sleeve, "only there's always such a crowd at the Government food shops. The men trample the women and children to death, and that takes away one's appetite."

"Yes, we're savages now," said the barrister, "we've shed our infernal skin of gentility."

He looked away towards the street arab. The lad was rejoicing on the verge of success, but rejoiced too early, for the pigeon flew clear of the snare. Then the lad cursed.

"I watched all night," said the curate, "by the Palace. Our poor little Queen works hard."

The other was cynical. "Does she?"

"D'you know," said the other, "that Ulster is dead?"

"No such luck."

"But it's true. A woman stabbed him. Really."

"How do you know?"

"I crept into the porch, and there were two gentlemen of the Bodyguard, talking. They turned me away into the rain. D'you know there was something going on. All night I saw ships and private yachts, hundreds of them, reporting at the Palace towers. The air was black with them coming and going."

"It may be," muttered the lawyer. "Ulster dead!"

"Once," the curate went on bubbling with news, "a Guardsman rode out with his servant, and the orderly stopped behind to tighten a girth. I helped him. D'you know I smelt bread and real cold beef in his wallet. He told me that the trades unions have proclaimed a Republic—yes, at Manchester. Then I asked him for some of the meat, and he was so rude."

"The Republic proclaimed already? Then Ulster must be dead. My friend, do you realize what this means? The Republic? It means that the Territorials have revolted, five hundred thousand men in arms against the Government."

"We have the Fleet." The curate lifted his head and answered proudly.

"The Fleet, Mr. Parson? And when the Republicans seize the power station, when they cut off the whole supply of electric force—what becomes of your Fleet? Answer me that!"

"Oh, but my dear man, really, don't y'know, we have Malta, Gibraltar, and the Newfoundland station. They can all flash electric power to our ships."

"If they had warning, yes; but all the telegraphs are cut. I tell you the power stations will be captured this very day, and nothing can save the Fleet. I wonder—when the London guardships founder, why, we may get some food from the wrecks! Yes, food! And the London Unionists, too—they'll be revolting to-day—they'll attack the departments of State. Parson, I know a house not far from here, with five barrels of flour. There'll be no police to-day—come on, let's rob that house!'

"Rob a house?" said the curate, wistfully. "Oh, but I'm in Holy Orders, don't y'know." Then rolling over exhausted, "My dear friend," he whispered, "couldn't you bring me just a little flour?"

"I might," the barrister sneered, "and I might not. All right, go off to sleep, don't mind me." He looked round. "Hello, the boy's got that pigeon!" The barrister scrambled to his feet. "The little brute!"

He looked at the curate, who seemed to be asleep, then at the street arab who was sucking the pigeon's blood. He felt the parson's clothes for tobacco, but his eyes were on the lad who had captured food.

Staggering with weakness he went for the street arab, drawing a knife from his pocket. The lad crouched unheeding, tearing the bird apart. The barrister, staring dreadfully about him, stole upon the lad, his knife ready, his lips twitching, his teeth set. Then a rifle shot rang out from one of the barricaded windows of St. Stephen's Palace, the barrister leaped into the air, and fell doubled up upon the pavement, his limbs relaxed, his mouth wide open, One of his legs gave a last twitch and he lay quite still. The street arab had run away.

Then from a distance came the steady tramp of marching men, and the curate seemed to wake at the sound from a spell of sleep. He rose upon his hands and knees, he tried to stand up, but he had not the strength. He looked at the Palace, and just opposite to him was a door which led into the purlieus of the House of Lords. He crawled across the pavement, lifted himself wearily up the low steps, and banged with a stone against the door.

Nearer and nearer came the tramp of men.

"Help!" screamed the curate. "The Republicans! Save me! Save me!"

* * * * *

In the Council Chamber at the Queen's Palace, my Lord Protector's Ministers were assembled. The Duke of Ulster had warned them, the Princess Margaret summoned them. Our Lady was to render her submission, to repudiate the treason of John Brand.

Then upon a flourish of trumpets, entered, not his Grace of Ulster, but her Imperial Majesty attended by a hundred gentlemen-at-arms.

Amid the consternation of Ulster's Ministers it was the First Lord of the Admiralty who dared to come forward barring our Lady's passage to the throne.

Waving his hands towards the foot of the table, "Madam," he cried, "the place for the Princess Margaret is here."

For a moment the Queen fell back, surprised at old Lord Mendip's audacity, then her eyes glittered ominously as she turned to the adjutant of the Guard.

"Tell this gentleman," she said, "to stand aside."

So she swept on to the throne, and there turning, faced her enemies. Our Lady was in mourning, robed in a cloud of dusky violet silk, some folds of it veiling her head and making the sad face white in livid contrast. Verily she was Queen, if only by right of sorrow, by majesty of pain, and by dominion of men's love and worship.

"My lords," she said, nervously, "and gentlemen," this with a gracious bow, and a smile of welcome. "I am shy at having to meet you here again—forgive that to a woman—here, where you honoured me with—with your homage. Do you remember, it was in this very room, and the gray light stole in through the frost on those windows. How bitterly cold it was, and I had just come from where my dear father lay in death. Don't you remember? You, my Lord Mendip, cried 'Long live Queen Margaret!' You, Mr. Jesmond, told me how I must wear the terrible white crown, sit on the stone of Destiny—and I cried. You, Sir Roderic Scott, were first to kiss my hand—this hand which has gone cold at the very thought of it. And afterwards, in the Abbey, before the altar, you swore to serve me—all of you. How have you kept that oath?"

The Ministers were standing in groups about the table, whispering one to another behind their hands. Lord Roderic Scott was inquiring of the impassive Guards as to his Grace of Ulster, when once again the Queen began to speak.

"You have come," this very gently, "to receive—what are the words? Yes, my repudiation of the treason of Mr. Brand. There are some other things mentioned, I think. Will you not sit down?"

Reluctantly, one by one, the Ministers took their seats in order of precedence.

"Thank you," said Margaret, "it is right that you should sit, and that I stand until I have dealt with this matter of treason. I am to repudiate treason. Oh, my lords and gentlemen of the Imperial Council, do you forget that by the Coronation oaths I must do more than repudiate every treason? I am bound to punish treason, to punish treason with death. And I am resolved this day, either to punish all treason in my realm, or die in the attempt—yes, die! I know the cost. I have been honoured with the service of many loyal men, and I have not failed any of them in love or gratitude. I have only found one strong friend in the whole world, and he is John Brand. I have not failed him in love or in gratitude. He has dared to be true, dared to be loyal, dared to be my friend—and he has paid the price. He was the richest man in the world—who is so poor now? He was the most powerful subject that ever a sovereign had—who is so fallen? He was desperately wounded fighting for me, he is a hunted outcast for my sake, and he is ready at any time to die for me.

"The man who is guilty of treason must die, or I refuse to live.

"You are wondering if I speak as the Princess Margaret, or as Queen and Empress? Well, for the present I am content to be one concerned for your honour, for your dignity. I have a letter here—see, this letter—bearing all your signatures. You wrote to me, twelve days ago—saying that a Bill was passed by Parliament deposing Margaret, appointing a Lord Protector, and tearing up the British Constitution. It took hundreds of years to create that Constitution, and it was destroyed in a few minutes. Without consulting the people, or their sovereign, the Parliament under your guidance did this thing, then blind with panic, wriggled away into dissolution, leaving its precious Bill to be dishonoured by all honest men. My lords and gentlemen, how about your oath?"

The Ministers were ill at ease, some passing furtive notes one to another, the rest consulting in whispers.

"You had the Lord Protector of your choice," said Margaret, bitterly. "He once betrayed the Indian Empire for a bribe, and laid the blame upon an innocent man—who died for it. Lately he divulged the Formula of the Fleets, gave shameful concessions to his Russian master, and would sell his Queen, even to such a buyer as Prince Alexander. Nay, silence! I command your silence, gentlemen, while I speak. Proof piled on proof in Ulster's own handwriting, condemns this felon. You are waiting for him now to sit in judgment on me. So you keep your oath!

"You swore to be faithful to Ulster? Why, half of you wrote privately to me betraying him! And others of you in privy conspiracy, offered the kingdom to my cousin Rupert—such is your honour! And having betrayed me, and betrayed Ulster, and betrayed Prince Rupert, you came back here to humble me, to punish me, to receive my abject submission, to demand my repudiation of John Brand! What a court of honour! Do you know where Rupert is—the Duke of Gloucester?"

Our Lady was breathing deep, but not another sound broke the silence until she spoke again.

"He is in Ulster's office, gentlemen. Your letters to him are lying upon his breast, and lest any of them be blown away by the wind, they are pinned down with a sword. My cypher is inscribed upon that blade. I am favoured, my lords and gentlemen, that you are polite enough to hear me now without whisperings or scribbling of notes, while you await the Lord Protector's coming. Are you wondering where next my sword will fall? Is Ulster late?"

Her Majesty ordered the barring of the doors. "Where is your leader?" she asked. "Are you deserted by the chief of your rebellion? Let the Guard salute!"

The gentlemen of the Bodyguard presented arms, and Margaret took the throne.

"Stand!" she commanded, and in amazement the Ministers obeyed. "I have to speak to you concerning the action of my dear friend now at rest, Trooper of the Bodyguard, James, Marquess of Sydney.

"By the hand of his own son, I have taken the Duke of Ulster's life for capital felony. Your Lord Protector is dead, and I am Queen."

The Guard ordered and grounded arms with a crash.

"Come, gentlemen," said Margaret, "I have made an end to your delirium of treason. You were once my people's chosen servants—who else shall I trust if I may not believe in you? I recall you to your oaths, your patriotism, your honour, your manhood. I ask you again to be my Ministers, to accept my love and confidence. One of you I except." And Margaret's eyes fell on Lord Roderic Scott. "Oh, be kind to me, gentlemen," her voice broke with a great sob. "I'd rather be a servant and scrub floors, yet I am Queen—you laid that burden on me, and I must reign until it pleases Heaven to let me die. But must I go on fighting all alone? Is there no one left who cares for England's honour?"

For a moment there was silence, then the First Lord, the aged Earl of Mendip, rose to answer.

"Dear madam, dear sovereign, please let me speak for my poor colleagues here, and comrades in wrong-doing. I am too old to blush—my blood is all needed at the heart which still beats only for the service of the Empire—but I'm sure I never dreamed I was such a villain. Your Majesty has youthful blood, and dauntless courage, but pardon me, not quite omniscient wisdom. Some vestiges of right remain to us, some quivering nerves of honour, even some shreds of manhood.

"In the evening of our lives we have had the grace to worship the Evening Star, we called her Margaret. The sun of our Finance was Mr. Brand. It is no censure if I say that the sun was sometimes rather hot for us. In a state of ecstasy, perhaps, he fell from the heavens, came too near, and burned us. Were we a little restive at being burned? Was it unnatural that, in the agony of a world destroyed, we forgot our worship of the Evening Star?

"Well, well, I shall pursue the metaphor no further. Mr. Brand has gone with Ulster, and the unfortunate Prince Rupert, to face a greater tribunal than ours."

"He is not dead!" cried Margaret.

"Stripped of his power, wounded, a fugitive——"

"The man who saved the honour of the Empire."

"The man who wrecked the world!"

"Gentlemen!" our Lady's white face was set in stern defiance. "As he was loyal to me, so am I Brand's loyal friend. I have sent the royal yacht to succour him, and he will come back with his ships to meet my enemies."

Lord Mendip bowed. "We are ready," he said, "to serve your Majesty, but——" a rifle shot rang out beyond the palace walls, then another and another.

"But what?" asked Margaret, scornfully.

"Madam, this Brand is an attainted traitor."

"Attainted by whom, pray?"

Again there were rifle shots in the distance, a dropping fire.

"Attainted, madam, by the Commonwealth."

"Am I not sovereign?"

"Madam, I spoke with unbecoming fervour of the gentleman who—his party, madam, the Labour Party——"

"His party? Listen, my lord, to that firing! Is this a time for parties? Lord Mendip, in the peril of the State there is but one party—mine! You serve me as Brand serves me, or you are rebels."

Sir Myles Strangford, Secretary for War, rose to give answer.

"Your Majesty," cried the War Secretary, "we are loyal. We will take the oath and serve!"

"Sir!" our Lady flushed with rage. "Do I hear you speak of oaths?"

For a moment her voice was drowned in a roar of musketry. "My patience is at an end. Rupert is dead, Ulster is dead; shall I spare you? I let you live while you are loyal to me, and at the slightest sign of treason I shall kill. As you tore up the Constitution, so I reign—I reign in the way of my fathers—so long as there is danger, absolute Monarch. Gentlemen of the Guard, you may withdraw—we need no protection while our Council sits!"

She rose from her throne, she turned her back upon the Council, and so stood waiting until she should be alone with her sullen, mutinous, vengeful officers. They saw that she looked out through the bayed windows; not the tears which blinded her or the forlorn gesture of her prayer for help.

The gentlemen-at-arms had swung to half sections and marched out from the chamber before our Lady moved. These windows, from a high salient of the Palace, commanded Whitehall. Half veiled in mist, the departmental buildings flashed with a thousand tiny points of fire, the rifle flame, the blaze from heavy artillery, then the glare of exploding shells. For now the crackling of musketry was drowned by spitting, shrieking machine guns, and the great roar of battle.

Sir Myles Strangford came and stood beside our Lady's throne as though on guard. A shell screamed close above the roof, a stray bullet crashed through the window and almost grazing Margaret's hair, lodged in the wall behind.

"Sir Myles," said our Lady, turning to the Secretary for War, "can the Departments hold out?"

"Your Majesty, for Heaven's sake, take shelter."

"Are the Departments safe?" she insisted, smiling.

"I had eight hours' warning, madam. The buildings can hold out until Lord Mendip's patrol ships come to the rescue."

"I have called them, madam," old Mendip touched his aerograph. "The Departments will be relieved in an hour."

"These Republicans, Sir Myles—are there many of them?"

"Twenty-eight thousand," answered the Secretary for War. "They're bringing up their batteries, and certainly, madam, we depend on the ships."

The firing slackened now, and Margaret, returning to her seat, questioned Lord Mendip as to affairs in the Midlands. It was true, he admitted, that the Republicans had attacked the power station, and, in the event of its capture, nothing could save the Fleet. But the position was an impregnable fortress, the Channel Squadron had been ordered north, and, indeed, there was nothing to fear.

"Nothing to fear," our Lady muttered to herself. "Nothing to fear. Then, my lord, are these Republicans mad? The Departments impregnable, the power station impregnable, the ships expected; on these conditions the Republicans would never dare to attack. They would not dare to attack unless they knew the Fleet could be destroyed. They expect to capture the power station; they're sure of it—they stake their lives on that. Are you sure, Lord Mendip, of this power station?"

"There's no stronger fortress in Europe."

"My lord, is any fortress proof against treachery? These rebels have staked their lives that the place will be betrayed to them. Call up the officer commanding."

The old lord, with tremulous fingers, signalled by aerograph, but there was no answer. Again and again he called, but there was no answer.

"Madam," he said, "I fear——"

The aerograph began to be disturbed; a rush of signals hummed from its armature.

"Position mined—rebels in possession. Ground the Fleet!—Ground the Fleet!—Ground the Fleet!"

"Oh, quick!" cried Margaret, in agony. "Order the ships to ground!"

The First Lord, poor Mendip, had fallen back in his chair, his white face convulsed, his fingers twitching and pulling in frenzy at the key of his instrument. Our Lady rushed to his side, seized the aerograph from him, begged him to dictate the orders to the ships. And all the while, the old man striving for utterance, the rest of the Ministers frantic to hear him speak, the gun-fire quickened in the distance, and some one was thundering for admittance outside the door of the room.

"He's dying!" Margaret's voice broke to a wail of misery. "Oh, who knows the cypher of the Fleet? We'll be too late—too late!"

The door burst open, an officer of the Bodyguard broke headlong into the room.

"Madam," he yelled, "the ships—the destroyers of the patrol are foundering!"

Lord Mendip's head had fallen back, his fingers were tearing at his breast, his eyes were glazing. Then his arms fell limp, and the change passed over his face, and the jaw dropped.

Our Lady bent and kissed the still dead face, then reaching out her hand beckoned the living.

"Kneel, gentlemen," she said in a low, awed voice. "Pray for the passing Fleet, for ninety thousand men called by their God."

So they all knelt, our Lady, the adjutant of the Guard, the Ministers of State, while outside, the crash of musketry, the roar of guns thundered the requiem of the English Fleet. Presently the body of the old lord slipped down and fell before Margaret's knees. Shrinking away, she went back to her place upon the throne.

Some of the Ministers were moving to take away the body, but our Lady checked them.

"No," she said, "do not take it away, but lay it there before us upon the table."

They laid the frail body upon the table, paying some reverent offices, closing the eyelids, folding the hands. Shrinking from that presence, dreading, fearing it, our Lady lifted her reluctant eyes.

"We need this reminder," she said faintly, "that we are all being judged."

Then that swaggering, gallant, old Lord Roderic Scott rose, bowing to her Majesty and to the dead.

"Madam," he said, "the Fleet is gone, the Departments may last an hour, and then the Republicans will turn their guns upon this building. If your Majesty is determined to wait, I trust we shall all have the decency to die like gentlemen. But I beg your Majesty to accept the use of my private yacht, and return to Windsor until we can raise an army."

"My dear Lord Roderic," our Lady smiled. "What armies would care to fight for a runaway Government? I think I have a better plan than that. Sir Myles, I see you have troops here guarding the Palace."

"Three thousand, madam, and a battery."

"You have not enough men to save both the Departments and the Palace?"

"Not nearly enough."

"But if we had all the troops here, we might save the Palace?"

"A desperate venture, madam."

"So in any case the Departments must be lost?"

"Better, madam, to give up the Palace itself, than to surrender the very seat of Government."

"The Palace," cried Sir Roderic, "is no safe place for your Majesty."

"I beg you, madam," urged Jesmond, "to retire."

"Why so nervous, gentlemen?" asked Margaret, bitterly. "I see anxiety in all your faces—so loyal, so moved for my safety. Is it because you mined my Palace with a hundred and fifty tons of dynamite? How thoughtful of you! How considerate! You supplied me with explosives enough to mine all your Departments of State; for two days, gentlemen, I have been considering your case. There, over by the wall, on that little table, stands an electric key—one touch on that key at any moment these two days past would have released you all from these dull cares of State. One of you—a gentleman seated at this table—is the very leader of these Republicans. His aerograph lies upon the table before him, and he appears anxious to warn his friends by signalling." Her Majesty's piercing stare was fastened upon none other than Lord Roderic Scott. "Lord Roderic, you will lower your hand, both hands, down against your sides. Mr. Jesmond, you will take away his aerograph. If he lifts his hands he dies. Sir Myles Strangford, you will signal the officer commanding at Whitehall to withdraw and fall back upon the Palace, and you will order the troops here on guard to cover the retreat."

* * * * *

Whitehall, a congeries of palaces, a city in itself of unusual grandeur, had never seemed so vast as when it loomed through the cloud of battle. Pale wreaths of smoke girded the walls, columns of dust went up from bursting shells, and little, innumerable spurts of fire lightened the windows, outlined the terraced roofs. A column of red flame waved high above the Admiralty, and, shattered by artillery from beyond the river, the Palace of St. Stephen's crashed down in acres of ruin. One by one the palaces were taken, barrier after barrier was broken through as the brigades of starving Republicans, mad with bloodshed, swept back the Imperial troops.

And all through the rooms and corridors, thousands of people went about their business, in the strange English way; the clerks who still worked at their desks or helped to bury the archives and treasures of their departments; the nurses, the surgeons, the chaplains who helped the wounded, gave comfort to the dying, closed the eyelids of the dead; the soldiers who fell back from the windows to fight the advancing flames.

It was long past noon when the Queen's orders came—the signal to retire upon her Palace.

Building after building was left to the next triumphant rush of the enemy, until the Imperial forces were jammed together at the Foreign Office, guarding the non-combatants, and, under cover of troops from the Palace, began the final movement of retreat. It was but half a mile to the Palace gates along Death's Avenue.

Up against the windows of the Council Chamber, nearer and nearer lashed the hurricane of sound—the yells of dying men, the rattle of musketry, scream of machine guns, roar of artillery, crash of falling walls, and, beyond all, the deep dull roar of the conflagration.

Within the Council Chamber the great lords of the administration sat still at their table. Before them all lay the body of the old Lord Mendip, the green cloth of the table casting a dreadful glow upon his face. By the left hand there was placed an electric key with covered wires trailing to the floor, and opposite to that two Ministers sat guarding Sir Roderic Scott, a prisoner. Bolt upright in the chair of state, our Lady never moved save once, when she covered her face with one fold of silken gauze from the hood of her violet robe.

Sir Myles Strangford at the windows reported from time to time how the battle went.

"Shot down like dogs," he cried. "Nurses, civilians, clergy, and broken troops, officers beating the poor fellows with their swords—and the retreat—by George they're falling by hundreds. The whole avenue jammed." For a moment his voice was drowned by the uproar.

"The rear guard's clear of the Department!"

Her Majesty leaned forward. "Lord Roderic Scott," she cried, "reach forward your right hand and touch that key! Mr. Jesmond, take the knife and drive it into that man's flesh until he obeys me. Now, Roderic Scott, reach out your right hand, and lay it on the key! and may God have mercy on your soul!"

* * * * *

And the river rushed in upon the site of Whitehall.

XVIII THE QUEEN'S MADNESS

This poor history book! It set out to chronicle the affairs of all mankind, and has only room for one woman.

So a boy goes forth into the world strong, careless, jubilant, thinking the Earth, the lights of Heaven, the dark of Space, all made on purpose to be a playground for him. But an old man looks back with his wan smile of memory, and sees that the sun, moon, and stars made but an aureole for one mighty love.

Let the old man maunder a little at the heads of the chapters—you may be an old fool, too, before you have turned the last sad page in the dear Book of Life.

Except for some who foully revile Brand, the learned historians lay all the blame on Margaret.

Learning has chilled the blood in their sluggish veins, conceit of their knowledge given them scaly hides, and their blind logic made them sinuous, these bookworms, who with exuding venom have fastened their poisonous teeth on Margaret's fame. She sheltered Brand, staked crown, reputation, life upon the hazard of her faith in him. She had Prince Rupert slain, the Dictator slain, and the metropolitan chiefs of the Republic slain. The seat of treasonous revolt against her she cleansed with the waters of the Thames. Aye, and more, she reigned as no sovereign in modern times had ever dared to reign. We were lost in the night of despair, we fought in the maelstrom of Death, but the memory of that time is the memory of one white spirit, pure and strong, whom no waves of misfortune could overwhelm, or mist of anguish hide. We were men-at-arms who worshipped Margaret then, and those that are left of us are old fools now, fearful lest any venom so much as touch her robe.

In these days there were two or three attempts made by insane persons upon her Majesty's life. At the petition then of the whole corps of the Bodyguard she appointed orderlies for close attendance upon her person, choosing the two nearest friends of my Lord Sydney, Sergeant Dymoke to be on duty in the day time, Trooper Browne at night. Her Majesty was pleased also to confer upon Trooper Browne the honour of Knighthood in the order of St. Michael and St. George.

It was after midnight—how we missed the bells of fallen Westminster—and Trooper Sir Patrick Browne, faint with excess of pride, stood in a vain pose by the door of the private rooms. He was startled out of all his dignity when, the door opening, he found himself of a sudden face to face with her Majesty.

"Hush!" our Lady pressed a finger of warning to her lips. "There," she cautiously shut the door. "I'm afraid of waking Miss Temple. Follow softly."

So gathering her white cloak, she sped like a ghost, he following, to the south-west tower. Not stairs but inclined planes circled upwards, an easy hill, to where a flight of steps gave on the roof, and one looked out over London.

This night began the great gale, and already, far down beneath, the trees were lashing and swaying. Low above trailed the flame-lighted clouds, the wind was roaring round the tower walls, and red embers flashed past in the smoke. The gale swept by in gusts, fiery hot, then of a sudden, icy cold, then slanting hot again. Right up against the wind, Belgravia was in flames, and down to leeward, the whole district of the Strand glowed like a furnace. Spiral columns of flame went reeling eastwards, then lifting clear from their base, rolled up and burst. And over all the roar of wind and fire one heard the screaming machine guns crushing out the Republican revolt.

"Madam," cried the trooper, "come away, this is too horrible for any woman."

"For any woman? Sir Patrick, are there not thousands of women yonder?" Our Lady turned, the flame-light on her face. "Do you think I care? Do you think I suffer? Dear lad," she turned away again with a wan little laugh, "I don't care now, I'm an old, old woman—past caring any more. Let me rest here."

The trooper laid his cloak in a sheltered place, and there for a long time she sat, crouched down, all shrunk into the corner, staring at the flames.

Was this the Margaret who seven weeks ago held court of Love in her gardens, Queen of the May, loading grave officers of the Palace with wreaths and garlands, then with the mischievous gravity of a fairy, tootling a jig on the pan pipes while the Lord Great Chamberlain danced!

Margaret crouched down in a corner, haggard with sleepless misery, staring with great wild eyes on the burning of London!

The sentries were calling from salient to salient, bastion to bastion.

"Number one, all's well!"

"Number two, all's well!"

"Number three, all's well!"

Then faintly in the distance of the gardens, "Number four, all's well!" Forty-five gentlemen of the corps had fallen in the confused fighting of these last two days; many more had been sent away by yacht, or by road with messages on the business of the State. How we grudged every man who was taken away from guarding Margaret. We all had our private troubles—those who were dear to us did not escape ruin and hunger, and one trooper who visited his home, came back to the Palace insane. These matters we kept to ourselves, but there was an understanding in the mess that each man must keep his life at our Lady's service so long as she had need of the Guard.

This had been midsummer day, the longest in all the year; but Margaret was at work from dawn to dusk, and her Ministers had barely time for food.

The Departments of State found themselves quarters in the Palace, and the Postmaster-General contrived the telegraphs, some sort of money was arranged for the public—what kind of currency mattered nothing now. A power station was got to work in the Midlands so that electric shipping was able to take the air. The Fleet reserve was mobilized, and the royal yacht squadron assembled. The railways were seized, and a service of trains commenced. The Imperial army began to concentrate upon London, regiment after regiment, brigade after brigade being quartered and fortified to protect the main supplies of food.

And so her Majesty began to reign. The fallen lifted their eyes, those who despaired ventured to think and to hope, those who were weak had strength to work for her, the wounded forgot their pain, the stricken their bereavement, the mourners their dead, and dying England lived for Margaret.

"Number one, all's well!"

"All's well."

"All's well."

"All's well."

Was our Lady asleep there in her corner? The trooper from his furthest side of the pavement, glanced through the corner of one eye, just daring to see her white robe shine against the black of his cloak upon the flags. He had not courage to really look at her, even if she slept, but paced his beat slowly from end to end, nine paces, and nine paces, inventing conversation all the time in which he made her seem to speak to him.

Somebody was coming up within the tower, and Browne at the stairhead waited ready to fire. A man?—the trooper boiled over at his insolence. Sir Myles Strangford, indeed!

"Get down," he whispered hoarsely. "Our Lady is here. Get down with you!"

"Who is it?" asked her Majesty. "What—Sir Myles? Don't go."

"Madam, forgive me," Sir Myles bowed to her. "I didn't know. Let me retire."

"No, stay, Sir Myles."

"Madam," he bowed again, "I couldn't sleep."

"Nor I. Come, sit in the shelter here and talk to me."

The Secretary for War sat down at our Lady's feet. "Tried to drug myself," he said frankly; "daren't take another drop—and sleep! How could I sleep?"

"It's not for you or for me," said Margaret. "'And so He giveth His beloved sleep'—only His beloved, you see—not for us."

"Madam, I can't stand it; I won't stand it," he spoke in breathless haste. "I don't care if you kill me for saying it. This declaration of war is impossible."

"I expelled Prince Alexander from the Palace; I gave the Ambassadors from Russia, France and Germany all their passports; I recalled my Ambassadors; I declared war," she turned upon the statesman. "You, Sir Myles, have the frankness and courage to protest, and you had the loyalty to obey."

"I behaved like a madman," he cried. "The Fleet is lost, the army is perishing."

"And the nation," said Margaret, "tearing itself to pieces. See there—all that—look; those are my people murdering each other like mad beasts! What would my fathers, the Kings, have done with them? Do I love my people less than those old kings who called with the bale fires and the trumpets—To arms! To arms! Bring your swords and save England! To-night, Sir Myles, all over the length and breadth of the Kingdom, my trumpets and bugles are sounding the call to arms. The old, old patriotism—the dear love never fails. There will be no factions to-morrow, but England, Britain, the Empire, ready to fight for the flag!"

"And you a woman! Madam!"

"And I, a woman, Sir Myles. I am something come down through many centuries—flesh and bone, blood and nerves, soul, spirit, made that I may suffer for my people. I am not a statesman, not a man, but a weak, miserable woman—and I am England. I know you may think it madness to declare war with the League, having neither Fleet nor troops—I know! Come, put it to the proof. No fleet, you say? The ports are jammed with deep-sea shipping, the arsenals crowded with good aerial ships of the Fleet reserve, the country teems with yachts of the royal yacht squadrons."

"But, madam, the very Formula of the Fleets was betrayed."

"We can change the Formula now."

"But the power station is gone."

"We'll use the mercantile stations."

"But the Fleets of the League! Madam, this is sheer madness."

"Sir Myles; call it madness. You will remember that Brand's ships in every part of the Kingdom were seized by Ulster's orders."

"I remember, madam."

"I never forgot. Brand is my servant, and do you think I have let his sailors starve to death in my prisons? No. The General Superintendent of Prisons, by my direct commands, had loads of provisions supplied to feed those men. I have saved them alive. You remember that Ulster seized one ship—the Golden Hind?"

"And became invincible!"

"God is invincible," said Margaret.

"Madam, how many ships?"

"I have eleven—the crews are released to-night; the ships will assemble here at sunrise. How are the Fleets of the League to fight etheric rams?"

XIX THE TALE OF THE DUN HORSE

Now for the tale of the Dun Horse, and Lancaster's great ride from Lyonesse.

There was no electric power for travel either by airship, road, or rail. It was hard without money to buy petrol for a car, or drive one over the broken roads, of districts where there was fighting. A big bay mare brought Lancaster through Cornwall, and fell dead at his farm near Tiverton in Devon, the place where the dun horse lived.

Oregon's colour was like the tawny, sunscorched grass of the great American Desert from whence he came. Such lion-coloured hide had hidden his ancestors from the ranging tigers, three hundred thousand years ago when the world was young. Down the back and across withers and shoulders ran dark brown stripes—the famous endurance lines, making the figure of the cross. This, again was a cast-back to a Zebra-striped ancestry of a hundred thousand generations gone. He stood fifteen hands, a pony like Alexander's Bucephalus or Napoleon's grey Marengo. His eyes were mad, his ears vicious, his hoofs hard as iron, his gait a rolling lope, tail and mane all streaming gold, his neck august, his pride untameable. It stirs one's blood to remember Oregon.

The dawn was breaking when Lancaster saddled the dun stallion; and that was the third day of the gale, and burning of London, the Fifteenth of the Terror.

In all their rainwashed length, the roads showed scarcely any sign of traffic, but Oregon shied at many a car lying abandoned by the wayside, at the skeletons of cattle slaughtered and stripped to the last ounce of meat by bands of starving outlaws from the towns, sometimes at some poor shapeless heap in the ditch which had to be passed at full speed. Trees had been blown down across the causeway, branches and leafage littered by the gale. That which was fallen lay. In the hollow lands the road was washed out or flooded, the newly mown hay lay swamped in the sodden fields, and the young crops beaten flat. The farmers were roughly fortified—every place where there was food had become a stronghold, and the live-stock driven out to pasture went always under an armed guard for fear of marauders. In these days, the folk knew why their old and long-neglected churches had been so built upon high ground, with such defensible towers to carry balefires, and loopholed belfries for alarm bells. The village churches returned to their ancient use as forts of refuge both for body and spirit. That is why Lancaster found the village streets abandoned, and the streets of the market towns a solitude.

The ages had rolled back, from the twentieth century even to the tenth; once again upon the lawless highways the robber bands were out to pillage and burn. Once again all honest men went armed, the farms were strongholds, the churches forts of refuge. Once again an English knight rode a war-horse of the ancient kind, wore the old chain mail, fought with a lone sword, and dared all for a lost cause.

Have the red roses of Lancaster ever failed from the thorns of our gardens? Has the royal blood ceased to throb in English hearts? The ancient roots are still alive to-day, through decades of centuries the time-honoured chivalry of this dear realm flowers perennial from the ancient soil. The English archers, the English mariners, the English engineers—time changes the instruments, not the English hand. And that the heir apparent of the Imperial Throne rode three hundred miles in forty hours, is testimony that England is England still beyond the accident of the centuries.

Lancaster had been badly hurt in the fight with the Gigantic, and now, after eleven days of neglect, the wrench and bad contusions on his near shoulder made him delirious with pain.

Ranges of hills to cross, and floods to ford, by dip and curve, by tortuous-winding vales, field, woodland, park, and moor, the road went swinging on. There were cathedral cities by the way, great country seats, commons of golden gorse, old road-side inns, orchard-screened villages. The young Prince saw nothing but the course, felt nothing but his pain, knew nought but his errand, his mission to the Queen. Wet to the skin he felt no cold or any discomfort from the lashing rain, but in his fever and delirium, dreamed, talked to himself, crooned songs, or followed imaginary hounds. He could not remember afterwards how he found the way, where he had baited Oregon, where fed or rested.

It was sunset when he cantered down through Reading, the dun horse reeling—and forty miles to go. Red shone the glare through a gap in the wind-torn clouds, red was the glow on mire-stained horse and man, red on the sky to eastward where London lay. Two hours later he had traversed the outer suburbs and entered Windsor. Still was the red glow lingering in the east. He was passed through the castle gate and in the outer ward he rested Oregon. The Governor held his stirrup when he left, the Governor's wife gave him a stirrup cup, the poor knights of Windsor—seventeen old men, sending their message of love to Margaret.

So Lancaster crossed the Thames and entered London. The dun horse kept his splendid rolling lope, but drooped his head and jarred his rider now—with yet another twenty miles to go. The elms of Eton were swaying overhead, there were the playing fields, yonder the school—and Lancaster's heart was singing. As Oregon splashed by, he waved his helmet—a red gleam caught the silver. He turned into a long, dark avenue, villas on either hand, screened by young plane trees—lightless, desolate. Then followed mile after mile of town more lonely than the fields; street after street, dead, silent, horrible, and always the red glow quickened in the east. Was it the dawn already, the dawn breaking on an abandoned world?

Out of the vague night ahead, massed roofs went up stark to the flushed red jagged driving clouds, when a man started out of the shadows close ahead—an old grey man in a priest's cassock, brandishing a red-edged crucifix. Oregon shied; then, under lash of spurs, reared up pawing the air.

"Beware!" shrieked the priest. "Beware! Babylon is fallen—Babylon the Great is fallen—is fallen! The scarlet whore reigns yonder, and vengeance descends from Heaven on her crimes. You're riding headlong to destruction! Back!"

The trooper lashed his horse with the flat of his sword, and far away behind him heard the cry, "Babylon is fallen—is fallen!"

The pools were red, the mire was red, the wide street red as blood under an immensity of glowing, rolling smoke, and ever in front the near horizons lifted against great heaps of flame. Down a bye-street to the left a house burned furiously, but the pavement in front of it was empty. Hollow echoes rang to the horse's tramp, but the vacant silence ahead showed never a sign of man. Was the lost capital wholly abandoned?

Here a row of shops had been sacked, their wares thrown wide across the roadway. Beyond, the street was blocked with acres of ruins, and circling round back ways to find a passage, Lancaster heard gun shots, saw the flicker of torches; then, turning a corner, came suddenly upon a blood-stained drunken mob plundering houses. Spoil was scattered everywhere; dead men and drunk sprawled on the litter; tables were spread upon the pavement; orators were wrangling over their wine—a Republican court in session for the trial of three gentlewomen, who stood in drenched night-robes lashed together with ropes.

Lancaster charged that court, rode the judges under, cut them down, forgot his message to the Queen, forgot the saving of the gentlewomen, vaguely supposed that the fight was a dream to be enjoyed, and went on slaughtering. He was surrounded, he was attacked on all sides; men were firing upon him from the houses on all sides—then something struck off his helmet, blinding his eyes, and Oregon, maddened with the burning pain of a torch against his flank, broke away screaming at a headlong gallop.

* * * * *

The empty street reached away between gaunt, enormous ruins under a sky of flame and roaring thunder, when Lancaster reined Oregon to a walk, borne slowly forward by a hurricane of wind; wiped the blood from his eyes, and, looking about him, knew that this was Knightsbridge. A body of cavalry swung down through the gates of the park, wheeled half-right, and broke to a trot directly athwart his course, their silver armour glowing with ruby light—a squadron of the Guard.

* * * * *

"Let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick into hell. For wickedness is in their dwellings."

Miss Temple was reading at our Lady's bedside, and her voice went on slowly, monotonously through the terrible minatory Psalms.

"Break their teeth, O God, in their mouths. Break out the great teeth of the young lions."

"Dear me," said Margaret, in her pillows; "how dreadfully uncomfortable."

"Not asleep yet?" asked the old woman, reproachfully.

"Not asleep yet"; Margaret uttered a quivering sigh. "Please, dearest, draw all the curtains back. If I could see the windows, I wouldn't think I was in the grave—that would be better."

Miss Temple laid her Bible reverently aside; then moving slowly across the room, drew back the curtains. The wreck of Whitehall had shattered all the glass, and now the windows were filled with oiled paper. The scarlet glare of the night shone fiercely in, the wind of the fire roared like a storm at sea. Miss Temple came back to her place, and our Lady reached out one shaking hand to feel a little comfort from her touch.

"Dearest," she whispered, "do you believe in ghosts?"

"We are forbidden," answered the governess, "to have any dealings with the departed."

"Hush, dearest; there's no need to be rude to these poor spirits, wrenched so suddenly from their bodies, taken all by surprise, shy at appearing undressed as it were, and they come here to see if their Queen cares. They come and go all night long, my dead; and they would think me so heartless if they found me asleep. I must not speak to them—that would be wrong—but they may hear me telling you that I care—I care—I care, and they will tell all the dead that I care."

"Child," said Miss Temple, fearfully, "don't think of such things. It's horrible."

"That they should die, and I not even mourn? You wouldn't have me a coward, dearest, would you? If I didn't care, if I didn't mourn, why all these millions of the dead would come to haunt me, to accuse me. Am I not guilty of their blood!"

"You saved the honour of England."

"And at what a price! What is the honour of England! It's like some awful heathen god, whose altar runs with blood, the blood of innocent men, and women like you and me, and little children. How can you talk of our honour! I wish—how I wish—if I had only known. If it were all to do again I'd let Ulster sell us body and soul to Russia, drag our honour in the mud, set up our shame where every one could see, and call the shame salvation. Yes, I would rather marry Alexander, or be torn to pieces, or burned at the stake, than pay the price of honour."

When Miss Temple needed guidance, it was her custom to open her Bible, take a passage at random, and then with fiendish ingenuity twist the text into agreement with her own views. From the most unpromising materials she got the most surprising results. Now the pages fell apart in II. Samuel, and when her eye lit upon "Elhanan the son of Dodo," with a small local directory to follow, she felt rather ill-used. Turning resentfully, she came upon the pedigree in I. Chronicles. She had to fall back on general principles, and flashed her indignant eyes on Margaret.

Margaret was asleep. All curled up, her dear head resting on one outstretched arm, fairily delicate she lay at peace. The lines of sorrow were smoothed away, her eyes—a moment ago so big, so dark with horror—were veiled now with the eyelids of a child. Down through the lurid shadow of the room, flamelight played and flickered, glowed on the ivory pallor of her skin, and made a dainty mimicry of health. She seemed the Margaret of other days, Queen of the May, our Lady of the Spring, before love kindled and grief aged her heart.

Hush! The child sleeps, and the woman must wake to pain.

If you would know the measure of a woman, judge not by her virtues, neither by her sins—God will judge these. How much did she love? How much did men worship her? The love that men bore to Helen, Cleopatra, Guinevere, illumine the history of nations, as it changed the rhythm of their times. How have men worshipped Elizabeth, and Victoria, and Margaret, each in her time, the Queen of all men's love? The conquerors laid Empires at their feet. The holy ideal of chivalric worship inspired the noblest literature, the highest art and the profoundest learning. Whole eras are illuminated by the glamour and the glory of such unselfish homage, that could bind men together, sweeten the common life, sanctify duty, and make death a rite.

Hush! England sleeps! The spirits of the slain, hovering in the flamelight and the lurid green-grey shadows, are pleading to God that He will have compassion on the Queen.

With savage satisfaction, Miss Temple watched. Margaret asleep at last! For a minute, for two minutes, then our Lady's voice rang loud through the room.

"Lyonesse!" she cried. "Lyonesse!" And starting broad awake, lifted herself in the bed, her gaunt face beaded with sweat, her dark eyes staring broad awake. Then she fell back with a moan, and clutched at Miss Temple's hands, and held them fast.

"Oh, why did you let me sleep?" she whispered. "I fought so hard to keep awake."

"You must have sleep or you'll lose your senses, child."

"I dared not sleep," said Margaret, trembling, "lest I should see him dead!"

"Margaret, these fancies are dangerous."

"This is the fourth time, dearest. He was in a little ship, so small you could have put it in this room, and far down underneath, river, and lake, and forest streaming past. He was all alone, the blood-stained bandage loose about his head, and he lay in his harness dead, except for his eyes. Only his eyes were alive watching me, speaking to me."

Miss Temple read the rest in Margaret's eyes, and turned her face away lest the Queen should see.

Even as the desert hungers for the rain, so Margaret craved for Brand. She could not tell Miss Temple that she loved him; the wise old governess pretended not to know, and thus the secret was shared by two sweet women with delicate reticence and understanding, marred by no words while every word would hurt.

"Dearest," our Lady whispered, "did you ever love?"

"Love!" Miss Temple's eyes went red. "What's love to me? Is this a time to think of love—to talk of love? Get to your prayers, child, this is no time for love."

But our Lady urged her again. "Dearest, were you ever in love?"

"In Heaven," Miss Temple was angry, "there's neither marrying nor giving in marriage. The sun will be darkened, the moon shall not give her light, the powers of Heaven shall be shaken, the earth shall quake, the mountains shall fall, the heavens shall roll away like a scroll before the great and terrible day of the Lord. This is a time for fasting, vigils, humiliation, prayer, not for profane thoughts of love."

Margaret lay back among the pillows, releasing Miss Temple's hand.

"I'm tired," she said, "so tired."

Then of a sudden she started up alert, listening intently, her eyes upon the door, at which the old lady grumbled, asking what was the matter.

"Don't you hear?"

"The roar of fire, child, there's nothing else."

"But I hear somebody coming—hush—listen."

"The fall of some building perhaps."

"There's somebody coming for me. I tell you somebody is coming—from Lyonesse—from him. Hark! There are footsteps."

"Trooper Browne in the corridor. Be still, child; lie down and rest."

But indeed there were footsteps, sounds of scuffling, of men disputing, and then the throwing open of a door. Through the length of the suite of rooms, Browne's voice rang out in warning.

"Madam," he shouted, "I could not hold him back!"

Men were trampling heavily through the rooms; even as her Majesty came down from the bed, the door of her chamber burst open—a man came reeling in, a trooper of the Guard, although his silver armour, rusted black, was drenched and stained with rain and mire, his face a mask of blood. He shouted hoarsely at the sight of her, then two Guardsmen following caught him in their arms, but he, struggling violently, broke away from them and fell at her very feet insensible.

Her Majesty knelt down beside the man, and full of pity lifted his bleeding head.

Sergeant Branscombe, standing at the salute, begged for the Queen's forgiveness.

"Madam," he pleaded, "we could not hold him back."

But she, in her white robe kneeling beside the man, pressed her small hands upon the spurting wound.

"Who is he?" she asked, "Oh, surely not—my cousin, Lancaster! He will die! He will die!"

"He is alive," Miss Temple's hands pressed hard upon his breast. "Quick, Sergeant Branscombe, water. You, trooper, bring the surgeon. What's this?" She found a strip of paper under the gorget. "A letter! Margaret, this is from Lyonesse!"

And Margaret read the message.

"In five days more I'll come with my ships. "JOHN BRAND."

XX VICTORY

"In five days more I'll come with my ships."

Five days had passed since Brand's promise reached the Queen, it was the twenty-first of the Terror, and the master was not come.

Trooper Browne had been on duty all night, slept through the morning, and now at two in the afternoon came hungry to the mess-room for luncheon. The tables were gone since daybreak, surgeons and nurses had taken possession, the pavement, the aisles, even the triforium gallery, were crowded with the beds of the sick and the dying taken from the streets. In the ante-chamber he found some biscuits, and with these and a glass of water fled to the guard-room.

That beautiful gallery was at least unchanged, its precious columns of azurite and malachite reflected in the polished slabs of the floor. The alabaster stairs came up from the portico, and went on to the chambers of state, now turned into hospital wards and Government offices. One man was on guard, Sergeant Jack Branscombe, fat, lazy old Jack sole garrison of the Palace, and him Browne relieved that he might get his breakfast. So the trooper sat on a bench eating biscuits, and watched the endless procession of sufferers being carried past upon the stairway.

One man on guard! Of the two hundred gentlemen-at-arms, and their two hundred orderlies, only seventy were left—all as brothers now—to ride with her Majesty. She would come back with her riders at four o'clock, tired out, and here on the table stood a gold cup, and a flagon of wine left by Miss Temple, for our Lady's refreshment.

Stealthily Browne lifted the cup, and pressed his lips against the rim. Even as he did that a little chuckle sounded close at his elbow—so startlingly like our Lady's laugh that he set down the cup in haste.

"Caught red-handed," said Tom of Lancaster, and sitting down on the bench, laid a white hand on Browne's knee. "My dear Browne, you must not poison her cup, even with kisses."

Browne grinned nervously. "Good morning, sir," he said, his eyes on Lancaster's deathly white face, "the doctor said you'd be in bed for months."

"Doctor's a fool," said Lancaster, then very faintly added—"Give me some of that wine."

Browne drank the water in his glass, and filled it with wine from the flagon.

"Here, sir."

"Drop that 'sir,'" said the young Prince, then with a sigh as he set down the empty glass, "How is she to-day?"

"Slept heartily these four nights, so Miss Temple says. She looks herself again since you came, Prince, with your message."

"Prince! I wish you fellows would drop that rot, and let me be a trooper. My name's Tom, and I'm as good as any man in the crowd. So the message cheered her up?"

"Saved her reason, I think."

"Browne," the Prince turned round with a short, sharp laugh, "you're in love with her. Bah, you flush like a girl—of course, you're in love with her. So am I, man, and the rest of the fellows are just as bad or worse. What's the use of trying to hide what hurts. Does it make the thing hurt less? She's not for us.

"She and Brand are in love, and by my honour, Browne, I'm glad, yes glad. That man is royal, the real thing, which I'm not. By our Lady, if you'd seen him fight the Gigantic!

"And all that time in the cave, six mortal days while he lay raving mad with his wound, he called to her: 'Margaret! Margaret!' Look what he was before, and what he's fallen to because he was loyal."

"In love with him," said Browne, under his breath.

"Of course she is, I saw them part. Didn't she burst into tears, so that she had to run away."

"The message," Browne's voice was broken now; "it saved her reason. I thought——"

"The message," said Lancaster, "I forged that message."

"Forged it?"

"Of course. How could I come to her without a message? That's what Brand would have written if he could. Do you think it was easy for me bringing that message?"

"I'd never have dared," said Browne, humbly. "Fancy lying to her!"

"Well, I'm her cousin, you know, and you'd have dared all right if you had been there. He was conscious, the fever gone—awful weak, of course, and he couldn't have written a letter to save his life. I did it out of my own head, too, and I hate writing letters. That night I climbed the cliff, and at the top found a young fisherman asleep. The man was in hiding, a criminal, I suppose; but he helped me, and we got Brand up with ropes. Neither of us knew that Ulster was dead, or that the royal yacht was out searching for Brand, or that Lyonesse was retaken for the Queen. I found out all that afterwards.

"All we knew was that Brand must escape from England; and he told me to search for a shed, close by where his cottage used to stand. Inside the shed we found a little old ship, the first one that Brand's father ever built, the mother of the Fleet."

"What, the Experiment? I've read about that."

"Yes, the Experiment; she was in perfect order, and we got her alive within the hour. I begged Brand to take the fisherman or me, but he would have neither of us. The fisherman must search for Miss Brand, he said, and take her a message. I must go to the Queen. Then he began to get delirious."

"You let him go like that!"

"He cheated me—said I could come with him, but first I must coil up the rope—he wanted the rope. While I was coiling up the rope the port clanged home, the ship rose with a whirr, drawing up a hurricane of dust and stones. I was dragged off my feet into the air, then fell nearly over the edge of the cliff. He was gone!"

"To his death," said Browne.

"Who knows?"

"And she believes that message!"

"I had to confess to some one," said Lancaster, dolefully. "Hello, here's old Branscombe. What's the trouble, Jack?"

"Thought you'd gone back to bed, sir."

"Bed be damned," said Lancaster, cheerfully. "Why that bereaved smile? More bad news?"

Fat Jack sat down panting, leaning his hands on his sword.

"Bad news? Well, sir, that's hardly the word, we're a little nearer the end, perhaps." He watched the long procession of the sick—borne one by one on stretchers up the stairway. "I'd rather the end came quick."

"Oh, go and be an angel," said Lancaster, scornfully. "Go and croak at the moon, Jack, weep to the clouds all alone on a damp battlement. We've had more fun and adventure this last month."

Browne laughed heartily.

"Well," old Branscombe smiled at the two lads; "I suppose I'm a fool," he wheezed. "Just now I was talking with one of our wounded men—Bill Sothern. He saw the whole Republican army in camp, two hundred and fifty thousand men at least, the pick of the Midland counties, well fed, in fine condition, and our poor half-starved troops, what can they do? How could our Lady so much as offer battle. The thing was hopeless—she was right to decline. Well, to-day, the Republican colours are flying on Hampstead Hill. To-morrow, their flag will be hoisted here."

"Come," said Lancaster, "cheer us up—go on, Jack."

"I wonder"—Jack grunted, looking steadily at the Prince. "You, sir, may be pleased. I'm of a different make. The French and German armies landed yesterday, covering the coast from Dungeness to Portsmouth—half a million men, with two hundred ships of the line to sweep our army away as they advance."

"Anything more?" asked Tom of Lancaster.

"The Russian Fleet has appeared off the coast of Essex."

Lancaster was whistling softly. "'Three blind mice—three blind mice; see how they run.' Well, Jack, I'll lay you three to one in anything you like on Margaret."

"In my country," said Browne, yawning, "the sun goes down in the fall of the year and never comes up again. The Arctic Sea is all shifting ice pack, the land all white drifts, and you think the night is never going to end. Yet it does; the sun comes up in the spring, and the mosquito season begins. Perhaps things will come out all right even in this England."

"Perhaps," answered Branscombe. "How long is it, Browne, since you joined the Guard—you're only a recruit, eh?"

"Thirty-one days and thirty-one nights," said Browne, "and it feels like thirty-one years. Another month of your London will make me a doddering old patriarch."

"Another month?" Branscombe rose and walked away with a sigh.

"Another month!" echoed young Lancaster.

"Why, gentlemen," came a voice from the upper stairway. "Are the Queen's Blackguards so far gone as that? All out of curl, no swagger—like a covey of widows?"

Lancaster turned with an acid smile to the civilian.

"Who the deuce are you?"

"I have the honour," said the civilian grinning, "to be her Majesty's Chief Poisoner."

Lancaster whispered to Browne. "Another bounder come to cheer me up. Well," he turned to the civilian. "Tell us all the bad news, there's still room for a fourth invading army from the west."

The Chief Poisoner lighted a cigarette, sat down, crossed his legs and chuckled.

"Don't mind me," said the Prince.

"What!" the civilian started to his feet. "I beg your Royal Highness—I mean, sir—I didn't——"

"Sit down," said the Prince. "Tell lies, we need amusing. Proceed, my Lord Chief Poisoner."

"Oh—ah—well, sir," the Poisoner smiled and writhed. "I have good news, sir, and at last I'm at liberty to speak. I had the honour to hear you mention, sir, the armies of the invasion."

"Yes, sir."

"They can't march on London without roads and railways, and they depend, sir, more or less on the country for supplies—of water, for instance."

"Water?"

"The first of all necessities. The Franco-German forces, as you know, sir, have landed on the coast of Kent, Sussex, and Hampshire. Now in these three counties, her Majesty has called out the Territorials, and ordered them to retreat on London sweeping the whole population before them, driving the live-stock in to feed the capital, burning all provisions and ricks that couldn't be moved. The railways have been mined, and the roads blocked with felled timber and mines. Yesterday I had the honour to direct the poisoning of every well, pond, and running stream. Her Majesty sends word advising the enemy that she will supply pure water when the troops lay down their arms."

"But they can march across?"

"Yes, sir, they can march across without transport or artillery, or food, or water, to attack the fortified positions on the north downs. Meanwhile the live-stock and provisions are restoring life and hope to the armies and citizens in London."

"You mean to say," cried Lancaster, "that the Queen has done all that in five days?"

"It's seven days since her Majesty seized the Government."

"How about the Russian landing in Essex?"

"I'm not at liberty to speak as yet."

"I see," Lancaster had both hands to his bandaged head. "But there are still the enemy's Fleets."

Browne chuckled.

"Hello," Lancaster flashed round on him. "Who told you to laugh?"

"Something," said Browne, "about eagles and bones out of the Bible—wish I could remember what Miss Temple did say. She reviewed them yesterday."

"Miss Temple held a review? Well, I'll be boiled!"

"No," Browne was irritable, "our Lady, of course, reviewed the What-d'ye-call-um's ships—Brand's ships—eleven of them."

"You're dreaming, Browne."

"It's no dream," said Browne. "Our Lady has kept the crews alive in gaol; she's got the squadron together, reviewed them yesterday, and she's going to send them against the enemy's fleets. They've got some sort of vibrations for touching off explosives, but none of their captains ever heard of these vibrations, and Brand is the only man who knows the secret. That seems to trouble our Lady."

"Vibrations be damned," said Lancaster, hotly. "I know all about etheric ships. Wasn't I in the Mary Rose when we rammed the Gigantic? Brand's ships are rams, and they'll go through an electric battleship like a shell through a paper balloon. Eleven rams like that could wipe out all the electric fleets of Europe. Why with the fleets destroyed and the country impassable——"

Browne yelped with delight.

"Here," cried Lancaster, "Jack Branscombe, you old fool. I'll bet you every horse in my stables, bar Sharon and the Dun—against your spotted dog, our Lady wins the game!"

Branscombe had been listening at the stairhead, now he rolled over to Lancaster.

"I can't," he panted. "I can't bet against our Lady."

"That the League don't capture London—my horses against your beastly spotted cur."

"Your horses are a scandalous lot of crocks, and I wouldn't have them at a gift; but done, sir! and I hope you'll win my dog."

"And so do I!"

The voice, our Lady's voice, came thrilling clear from the head of the lower stairway, at which the three Guardsmen sprang to attention, and the civilian bolted. So her Majesty came forward attended by her retinue of the Guard, and wearing her uniform as its captain.

Branscombe provided her a seat, Browne, kneeling, presented the cup of wine, the escort, breaking ranks, piled arms and awaited her pleasure.

"There," she said, laughing. "I'm tired enough to love my home. Stand forward, Sergeant Branscombe," said our Lady, and her eyes twinkled, for she dearly loved a jest. "You are charged with betting one spotted dog against your sovereign."

Branscombe prayed for the pavement to swallow him.

"I had no more," he stammered.

"One spotted dog or fifty, the same crime, Sergeant. I condemn you to quarter on your shield of arms a spotted dog proper bearing the legend: 'I am Lancaster's.' And you, Tom of Lancaster, get to bed, and behave yourself on pain of a severe course of mustard plasters—off with you! Gentlemen," she raised her cup, "I pledge the Guard."

We heard a trumpet blown outside the gates, and at the sound our Lady let the cup fall, watching it roll slowly across the floor.

"Go down," she said, "Gentlemen of 'B' squadron—receive this visitor—pay him all possible honour, and bring him here."

A dozen men, those of "B" squadron, parted from the rest, saluted, formed, and marched clattering down the long stairs. The procession of the sick and their bearers ceased. Then one could only hear the impatient horses stamping in the porch. We looked at our Lady, and saw that she was afraid.

"I want to warn you, gentlemen," she said faintly. "That trumpet was blown for the President of the British Republic—yes, the Republic. He has come to receive my surrender."

"Kill him! Kill him!" cried some, and every man in the chamber was moved to break away from the Queen's discipline.

"Gentlemen," said our Lady. "President O'Brien comes under flag of truce. If you are offended now, you will be furious when you hear his demands, and if you love me, you will stand quite still, except to salute him at his entrance. I warn you the slightest hostile movement may ruin me. My envoys have failed to treat with this man, my letters met with an insulting reply, and he holds North London in overwhelming force. Ah, here he comes. Don't be uneasy, I assure you I'm not going to surrender."

The President, attended by his staff, conducted by our troopers, came to the stairhead and there stood surveying our Lady and her war-stained Guard.

"Where is this woman?" he demanded hoarsely.

And in answer, Margaret rose to make him welcome, met him half-way across the chamber, and frankly offered her hand.

"What," she asked gently, "will you not shake hands?"

General O'Brien lifted his eyes until they were level with her brave sad face.

"Won't you shake hands?" she said, "you come to me in my utmost need." Then addressing his retinue, "I am so glad to welcome friends."

"This is all nonsense, madam. I am not a friend."

"That," answered our Lady, "is incredible. You are doing yourself injustice. My enemies are Russians, Germans, French, not British. You could not possibly be leagued with my enemies. I have sent my messengers to welcome your reinforcements, cleared the northern suburbs to quarter your troops, begged for your counsel as to meeting the Russian advance, and now you come pretending enmity."

"I pretend nothing, madam. I come as President of the British Republic to occupy this Palace."

Margaret laughed at him. "My dear good man, I can't spare room for another cot, even for you. This hospital is jammed to the very doors with my poor guests, the sick. See through that archway"—she pointed to the entrance of the mess-room—"in that one ward there are seven hundred cases of typhus. Come, General O'Brien, I'm badly in need of ambulance, and you must help me."

"I will take charge of that," said the President, brusquely. "Meanwhile, madam, a special train is waiting to take you with your following to Balmoral."

Our Lady turned away from him, crossed to her chair and sat down. She rested her elbows on her knees, her face in her hands, and looked up at this President thoughtfully.

"And so, General O'Brien," she said at last, "you want to sit in my throne, my most comfortless throne."

"I want no throne," answered General O'Brien, "I have come to put an end to this disastrous monarchy. I have no time for delay."

"And who are you?" Margaret lifted her proud head. "Who are you?"

"I command the armies of the Republic—three hundred thousand men."

"And I," said her Majesty, "command the nation, the feudatories, the colonies, the seas, the air—the British Empire. I am chosen by my people their anointed sovereign, guardian of their liberty, Defender of their Faith. The throne is not yours, General, or mine. It belongs to the people who make the laws, and we are their servants—their servants, General. When we have conquered the League, I will ask my people what kind of Government they want, who they will have as their President or their Sovereign. I will obey their orders, but, by God, not yours!"

"You propose to fight my armies?"

"No, I would not have one of my people hurt in such a quarrel. I have half a million men, to fight Russia, France, and Germany—not one to spare for you."

"What do you propose?"

A man had come to the head of the upper stairway, Sir Myles Strangford, Secretary for War.

"Where is the Queen?" he cried. "Gentlemen of the Guard, where is the Queen? I have great news—victory! victory! Our squadron of etheric rams has met the Franco-German fleets. Victory! Victory!"

How the Guard cheered!

Then her Majesty sent for Sir Myles, and he was brought to her.

"Tell me," she said, laughing as he kissed her hand, "who is this General O'Brien? He claims to be the President of some Republic."

Sir Myles looked up towards General O'Brien and laughed also.

"Does he offer, madam, to meet the etheric rams in battle?"

"Woman," cried General O'Brien, "I am not here to be insulted—surrender, or I shall take this Palace by assault."

"You would assault a hospital!"

Margaret rose from her seat, went over to the President, and, slowly drawing her sword—

"You would assault a hospital!" The sword whirled above her head, and with the flat of the blade, she struck heavily upon his shoulder. "Sir George O'Brien," she cried, "are you my knight, or are you my enemy? Take your choice."

"What do you mean?" he retorted in fury.

"I mean that you are knighted in my service, and commissioned Lieutenant-General to meet the Russian invasion, or that you draw your sword, Mr. O'Brien, and fight."

"This is an outrage!"

"Take it as an outrage, Mr. George O'Brien, rebel. It's easy enough to assault hospitals, easy enough to send brave men to their death. You have three hundred thousand soldiers, I half a million; but I cannot spare one life in either army—I can spare you. What's that sword at your side? Is it only an ornament? Have you no courage beyond assaulting hospitals? Draw, you coward, and fight!"

Here, Dymoke, as Champion of England, demanded leave to engage, but our Lady waved him aside, being in no mood for interference. As to General O'Brien, he was not so eager.

"I cannot possibly fight you. This is madness!"

"Sir, choose your own weapons, broadsword or rapier; I value my life less than I value yours. There's no room for both of us in the world. Draw, or I'll kill you. Draw, I say, draw!"

"I do not fight with women."

"A man then! Gentlemen of the Bodyguard, he demands a man! Choose your antagonist, sir, for fight you shall!"

"I refuse to fight!"

"Then," said one of the Generals of the staff, "I serve under no coward. I am a gentleman, your Majesty," he crossed to her rear. "I am at your Majesty's service."

In another minute President O'Brien stood alone, his staff gone over to the Queen.

"I accept the inevitable," he said, angrily. "I accept the position of Lieutenant-General in your Majesty's service."

"This coward," Margaret turned upon the Generals, pointing with her sword to the late President, "this coward proposes to serve in my armies. I send no cowards against my gallant enemies of the League. Which of you gentlemen holds highest rank in the Republican forces?"

General McNeill saluted.

"'Tis to you, then, sir, I shall entrust my campaign against Russia. You will consult with Sir Myles Strangford and receive my commands through him. As to this coward here, I entrust him to your custody as a prisoner. I order you to have him thrashed for cowardice in presence of the army he was unfit to lead."

The Republic was at an end.

Mr. Dymoke was furious. "What's the use," he said afterwards. "What's the use of being Hereditary Champion of England if I can't have somebody to kill? I was cheated out of my fight with Prince Ali, and here's the Queen herself getting in front of my rights."

He was to have his killing.

XXI THE QUEEN'S RETREAT

From the time our Lady's actual reign began, we saw the ruined land stir into being. For money she gave us "Queen's promises," that is to say, the old coins of the realm, which her Majesty vowed to redeem at their former value. With these coins, after she made proclamation on the thirteenth of the Terror, wages were earned and paid, the traffic moved again, shops opened for trade, and factories went to work. It was all done in a timid way at first, then with more confidence, and at last in full flood of recovery.

For those still out of work, her Majesty founded the Administration of Hope. To the municipal councils she granted powers for seizure of provisions, employment of workers, and service of rations to them and to their families. So the dead were buried, the streets and roads were cleared, ships were discharged, the markets stocked with produce from the shires, and London was fortified.

She founded the Administration of Succour, opening pawnshops for the loan of money, hospitals for the sick, camps for the destitute, and a service of military transport.

So daily, hourly, the Queen's dominion spread until the three kingdoms rang from end to end with feverish industry and courageous life.

It was all so gallantly done, and so hopeless. Nothing but the instant peril of invasion could have bound the people together while they were starving. The dying realm lived by her surgery, was healed, was saved, but then the price must be paid—and three armies were marching against the Capital. Our Lady's flotilla of rams shattered their covering fleets—but even etheric vessels could not charge battleships of the line without being injured; caught in the bursting magazines, they were racked to pieces. The fleets of the League were destroyed, but of the three rams which survived not one could float again.

Four shires, Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, and Essex, were laid waste, changed into desert where all the water was poisonous, but the armies of the invasion were only delayed until they could add tanks to their transport. Then the armies came against the outer defences of London—a web of hedges, ditches and canals, a labyrinth of suburbs which swallowed brigade after brigade, and sent back only wreckage of lost regiments. Our Imperial army was—ever since the beginning of the Twentieth Century—an army of marksmen—sharp-shooters who mowed down the poor conscripts of Europe, even as the swaths of wheat fell at the harvesting.

Behind her chain of fortresses our Lady was arming her people for defensive war; mines, mills, and factories, villages and towns sent their contingents of men to be drilled in her camps; the Midlands seethed with preparation of arms, and explosives; and every weapon capable of use added a man's strength to the great defence.

As Margaret called in her outposts, garrison troops came in daily from Halifax, Bermuda, Gibraltar, and were sent with their guns to the front.

France and Germany called up their fleet reserves, but the Mediterranean Squadron dealt with the French above Rouen, and turning eastward, caught the Germans in Hanover.

So the battle raged for weeks, over land and sea, but the vortex of this dread Armageddon was Margaret's Capital. The French army was in the outer southern suburbs, the Russians held the northern suburbs, the Germans were in the east, and the marshals of the invasion slowly mile by mile forced their way to the westward, closing down upon London. Another week would see the Metropolis surrounded, and the siege commenced. We knew that the end was near.

It was the bombardment of the East End which brought the council of war to plead with her Majesty for the desperate policy of retreat. They begged her to withdraw westward, to evacuate London, and, laying the land waste, fall back upon the Midlands.

"Fall back!" said Margaret bitterly. "Gentlemen, I cannot understand your military terms, but if that means run—I won't!"

"Madam," Lord Fortescue had a valued gift of persuasion. "We want to run away, leading the enemy inland until we catch him in a trap."

"That sounds well," said our Lady, pursing her lips doubtfully. "Are the traps always far inland?"

"Madam, if we are caught here in London, it means surrender."

"London, then, is a trap?"

"A perfect death-trap."

"A perfect death-trap." Margaret repeated the words doubtfully; then, like a flash—"If any army is caught in London, it means surrender!"

"Good gracious, madam!" exclaimed the Commander-in-Chief.

"Let me feel my way—perhaps it is nonsense. A million people are being shelled—murdered in the East End. Suppose we clear the East End—here, see on this map—from Stratford say, to Aldgate. I could send the women and children to Windsor Forest—they need a holiday, poor things. Any way we could spare that district to the Germans. Then there's the City and this West-Central district up to Charing Cross—a heap of ruins. We could spare all that to the Germans—enough room for them to lose their whole army. They would rush in to capture our main positions on the Hampstead and Sydenham Hills. They would find themselves in a low valley blocked with ruins, under the fire of a thousand guns, every line of escape blocked by our barricades, the river on their left too broad to swim. Then they would try to get back to their camps—and find their camps fortified with their own guns against them!"

"Madam!"

"My lord, have these Germans any mercy on my poor women and children? I want to capture their army."

"We couldn't possibly feed two hundred thousand prisoners."

"I want no prisoners, I want rifles for my reserves, Lord Fortescue, rifles and powder, and all the provisions in the German camps. As to the——"

"Madam," said Strangford, "a couple of hundred thousand German prisoners sent as a present into the hungry Russian lines might,—well, Russia loves Germany none too well as it is."

But Lord Fortescue objected, protesting that "London was full of foreign spies, and that we could never conceal our preparations."

"Permit me, madam," cried Strangford, eagerly. "My dear Lord Fortescue, here we have the complete plans for the evacuation of London. I could get the papers sold privately to the French, and we could so shape our preparations as to make the Allies believe we were in full retreat to the Midlands. Afterwards we shall have both Russians and Germans accusing the French of treachery. We shall split the League!"

There is no need to tell again the story of our Lady's stratagem. During the five days of its preparation, the armies of the League closing down through the western suburbs, cut off all hope of retreat, all chance of succour. No help could reach us from the outer world, and lost in the valley of death, we could send no word to salve the fear of England, or to restrain despair. So much we lost.

Then came the thirty-ninth of the Terror, when the German forces, a hundred and fifty thousand strong, marched into the capital.

From the Palace towers we watched the red sun rise, heard the first gun, and waited minute after minute until the silence became agony. Then came a sudden blaze from a thousand guns, the Palace reeled under the crash, and over the ruins of central London went up a cloud of dust. Of the German forces, thirty-one thousand men are supposed to have perished in that cloud, fifteen thousand escaped in panic flight, a hundred and four thousand prisoners were released starving into the hungry Russian lines.

Our Lady was pleased to dine that night with the Bodyguard. The tables, for lack of room elsewhere, had been set in the guardroom upon the alabaster stairs, and in her Majesty's honour we twined garlands of rose and laurel about the lamps, brought out the gold plate, and used some of that old, gracious pageantry which graced the bygone times. Outside, the guns were firing a salute, the bells of London pealed for victory, and our trumpets pealed as we rose to drink to the Queen. Then Sir Myles Strangford came, attended by his staff, and from the upper stairway read the report of our triumph.

"A hundred and fourteen thousand stand of arms, the German siege train, Woolwich Arsenal, three thousand wagons of military stores, twenty-two million rations——"

The harsh call of a bugle cut short his words, a quick, imperative summons at the very gates of the Palace. No English bugle was sounded in such a place.

When an attendant had been sent to make inquiries, Sir Myles went on reading the proclamation of victory, news that would bring comfort to the besieged, hope to all Britain. His voice was fervent in thanksgiving; a storm of cheering drowned his closing words. Standing with drawn swords we sang the National Anthem, thinking most of us of the women folk at home, our mothers and sisters in danger, and our dread sovereign Lady whom we served. Then the song died on our lips, our swords drooped, and there was silence while a vague fear gripped us at the throat.

A Russian general officer had come up the stairway attended by a trooper bearing the white flag on a lance.

"Gentlemen," he said, in broken English, "I have the honour—I bear a letter to her Britannic Majesty."

His eyes followed ours as we directed him, and perhaps, after all, the Russians pleaded for an armistice. The Allies were ready to fly at each other's throats, there was hatred within the League more than against ourselves. And yet the Russian's bearing boded no good to us, and as our Lady read we saw her face turn grey.

She beckoned the envoy to retire—told him to await her pleasure at the gates, kept silence until he was gone.

"Strangford!" she cried, "Strangford! Come here!"

She thrust the paper into Strangford's hand, and we saw him too grow cold before our eyes.

"Madam," he groaned, "I fear this is the end."

"Gentlemen," our Lady lay back in her chair very faint and ill. "Gentlemen of the Guard, you who have never failed me—never failed me," she started up, a new thought lighting her face. "You're the only men in the Empire who have not failed me. I appeal to you—I want ships—I want a squadron of ships. Help me! help me!"

Not a man moved, for how could we find her ships? We had given our yachts, those who had them, and had not failed her when our lives were needed—but ships! At the beginning the Channel Fleet was lost, but the fleets of the League were destroyed by etheric rams. The reserve fleets of France and Germany had been defeated by the Mediterranean Squadron. Victorious in a hundred aerial fights, the ships which remained to England were on guard, lest the French and Germans attempt a last attack. We dared not withdraw one cruiser lest our enemies take the air again—and that meant ruin. There was no squadron left even for the Queen's most vital need—or else the siege of London had been impossible. There were no ships.

A slow tear trickled down our Lady's face.

"We dared to hope," she said, "to hold out until Mr. Brand comes back—as he will come back! Oh, must he come too late?"

That was the most piteous thing of all, that our Lady still believed Brand would come back.

Sergeant Dymoke went to the Queen, and, bending his knee—

"Madam," he cried, "we are ready to go on fighting."

"How can we fight?" said Margaret angrily. "What can we do against the Siberian Fleet? Can we ride horses upon the clouds, charge nineteen battleships of the line with rifles, float up our fortress guns to fight the stars?"

And all the bells of London were pealing for victory!

XXII THE LAST BATTLE

Mars burned on the horizon; the six stars of Orion, the seven misty Pleiads, the eight suns of the Bear, and all the lamps of Heaven were shining steadfast. Suns spin their course, the constellations change, and all things pass, but yet eternal gleams the Milky Way spanning the night from everlasting unto everlasting—the perfect arch of God's restraining hand. We may lie down to rest in utter faith, for, with the failing glory of our day, the night reveals His visible providence. But those who cannot sleep most need His comfort, and our Lady Margaret kept vigil that last night.

From the high solitude of her tower, she watched the passing stars until the black ruins of the city loomed ragged against white dawn light. Ashen grey were the ruins of Mayfair to the north; gaunt and gigantic wrecks of Belgravia's palaces went up in white against the velvet west. The day was breaking—the last day of all. Mist lay beneath where all the Palace slept, and in the gardens the waking doves crooned softly. Far off in the south, trains rumbled at some junction of the rails; a car whirred in the Palace Road; an aerial yacht slid past in the western gloom, and London was alive.

The sun would come up presently; how few of all the thousands asleep in the Palace were destined to see him set! The trooper who stood by the parapet watching the pale light climb the eastern sky prayed with a boy's fervour that the sun might never rise. "Jehovah of the Thunders, Lord God of Battles, don't let that sun rise! Have pity; destroy the earth, hurl us away into the night, but don't let the sun rise upon Margaret's death—the end of human liberty, and all the glory of manhood that was England! Oh, stay the sun! Have mercy and stay the sun!"