s of endurance.

'I will go,' said the minister, 'and see what the trouble is with the
wireless. They give us nothing, good or bad.'

Left to himself, the king could worry his moustache without stint; he
leant his elbows forward on the balcony and gave both of his long white
hands to the work, so that he looked like a pale dog gnawing a bone.
Suppose they caught his men, what should he do? Suppose they caught his
men?

The clocks in the light gold-capped belfries of the town below presently
intimated the half-hour after midday.

Of course, he and Pestovitch had thought it out. Even if they had caught
those men, they were pledged to secrecy.... Probably they would be
killed in the catching.... One could deny anyhow, deny and deny.

And then he became aware of half a dozen little shining specks very high
in the blue.... Pestovitch came out to him presently. 'The government
messages, sire, have all dropped into cipher,' he said. 'I have set a
man----'

'LOOK!' interrupted the king, and pointed upward with a long, lean
finger.

Pestovitch followed that indication and then glanced for one questioning
moment at the white face before him.

'We have to face it out, sire,' he said.

For some moments they watched the steep spirals of the descending
messengers, and then they began a hasty consultation....

They decided that to be holding a council upon the details of an
ultimate surrender to Brissago was as innocent-looking a thing as the
king could well be doing, and so, when at last the ex-king Egbert, whom
the council had sent as its envoy, arrived upon the scene, he discovered
the king almost theatrically posed at the head of his councillors in the
midst of his court. The door upon the wireless operators was shut.

The ex-king from Brissago came like a draught through the curtains and
attendants that gave a wide margin to King Ferdinand's state, and the
familiar confidence of his manner belied a certain hardness in his
eye. Firmin trotted behind him, and no one else was with him. And as
Ferdinand Charles rose to greet him, there came into the heart of the
Balkan king again that same chilly feeling that he had felt upon the
balcony--and it passed at the careless gestures of his guest. For surely
any one might outwit this foolish talker who, for a mere idea and at the
command of a little French rationalist in spectacles, had thrown away
the most ancient crown in all the world.

One must deny, deny....

And then