ed, for it had never happened that the King had not at last broken
the silence at supper, so that all guessed trouble near at hand, and
peril for themselves. The Queen grew nervous and ceased to eat. She
looked from Philip to Don John, and more than once seemed about to
speak, but recollected herself and checked the words. Her hand shook and
her thin young nostrils quivered now and then. Evil was gathering in the
air, and she felt it approaching, though she could not tell whence it
came. A sort of tension took possession of every one, like what people
feel in southern countries when the southeast wind blows, or when,
almost without warning, the fresh sea-breeze dies away to a dead calm
and the blackness rises like a tide of pitch among the mountains of the
coast, sending up enormous clouds above it to the pale sky, and lying
quite still below; and the air grows lurid quickly, and heavy to breathe
and sultry, till the tempest breaks in lightning and-thunder and
drenching rain.

In the midst of the brewing storm the dwarf saw only the Spider in its
web, illuminated by the unearthly glare of his own fear, and with it the
frightened butterfly and the beautiful silver moth, that had never
dreamed of danger. He shrank against the hangings, pressing backwards
till he hurt his crooked back against the stone wall behind the
tapestry, and could have shrieked with fear had not a greater fear made
him dumb. He felt that the King was going to speak to him, and that he
should not be able to answer him. A horrible thought suddenly seized
him, and he fancied that the King had seen him slip the letter into Don
John's glove, and would ask for it, and take it, and read it--and that
would be the end. Thrills of torment ran through him, and he knew how it
must feel to lie bound on the rack and to hear the executioner's hands
on the wheel, ready to turn it again at the judge's word. He had seen a
man tortured once, and remembered his face. He was sure that the King
must have seen the letter, and that meant torment and death, and the
King was angry also because the court had cheered Don John. It was
treason, and he knew it--yet it would have been certain death, too, to
refuse to obey Dona Ana. There was destruction on either side, and he
could not escape. Don John had not read the writing yet, and if the King
asked for it, he would probably give it to him without a thought,
unopened, for he was far too simple to imagine that any one could accu