comers.

The man on the ground was badly hurt but plucky. 'Bombs,' he repeated,
and struggled up into a kneeling position and held his electric torch
full upon the face of the king. 'Shoot them,' he cried, coughing and
spitting blood, so that the halo of light round the king's head danced
about.

For a moment in that shivering circle of light the two men saw the king
kneeling up in the cart and Peter on the barn floor beside him. The old
fox looked at them sideways--snared, a white-faced evil thing. And then,
as with a faltering suicidal heroism, he leant forward over the bomb
before him, they fired together and shot him through the head.

The upper part of his face seemed to vanish.

'Shoot them,' cried the man who had been stabbed. 'Shoot them all!'

And then his light went out, and he rolled over with a groan at the feet
of his comrades.

But each carried a light of his own, and in another moment everything in
the barn was visible again. They shot Peter even as he held up his hands
in sign of surrender.

Kurt and Abel at the head of the ladder hesitated for a moment, and then
plunged backward into the pit. 'If we don't kill them,' said one of
the sharpshooters, 'they'll blow us to rags. They've gone down that
hatchway. Come! . . .

'Here they are. Hands up! I say. Hold your light while I shoot....'

Section 8

It was still quite dark when his valet and Firmin came together and told
the ex-king Egbert that the business was settled.

He started up into a sitting position on the side of his bed.

'Did he go out?' asked the ex-king.

'He is dead,' said Firmin. 'He was shot.'

The ex-king reflected. 'That's about the best thing that could have
happened,' he said. 'Where are the bombs? In that farm-house on the
opposite hill-side! Why! the place is in sight! Let us go. I'll dress.
Is there any one in the place, Firmin, to get us a cup of coffee?'

Through the hungry twilight of the dawn the ex-king's automobile carried
him to the farm-house where the last rebel king was lying among his
bombs. The rim of the sky flashed, the east grew bright, and the sun was
just rising over the hills when King Egbert reached the farm-yard. There
he found the hay lorries drawn out from the barn with the dreadful bombs
still packed upon them. A couple of score of aviators held the yard, and
outside a few peasants stood in a little group and stared, ignorant as
yet of what had happened. Against the stone wall of the farm-yar