thought the words
might rouse Philip's suspicions.

"What was your Serene Highness about to say?" enquired the King,
speaking coldly, and laying stress on the formal title which he had
himself given Don John the right to use.

"As your Majesty says, it is very like the chill of a fever," replied
Don John.

But it was already passing, for Adonis was not a natural coward, and the
short conversation of the royal personages had broken the spell that
held him, or had at least diminished its power. When he had entered the
room he had been quite sure that no one except the Princess had seen him
slip the letter into Don John's glove. That quieting belief began to
return, his jaw became steady, and he relaxed his hold on the
tapestries, and even advanced half a step towards the table.

"And now he seems better," said the King, in evident surprise. "What
sort of illness is this, Fool? If you cannot explain it, you shall be
sent to bed, and the physicians shall practise experiments upon your
vile body, until they find out what your complaint is, for the
advancement of their learning."

"They would advance me more than their science, Sire," answered Adonis,
in a voice that still quaked with past fear, "for they would send me to
paradise at once and learn nothing that they wished to know."

"That is probable," observed Don John, thoughtfully, for he had little
belief in medicine generally, and none at all in the present case.

"May it please your Majesty," said Adonis, taking heart a little, "there
are musk melons on the table."

"Well, what of that?" asked the King.

"The sight of melons on your Majesty's table almost kills me," answered
the dwarf.

"Are you so fond of them that you cannot bear to see them? You shall
have a dozen and be made to eat them all. That will cure your abominable
greediness."

"Provided that the King had none himself, I would eat all the rest,
until I died of a surfeit of melons like your Majesty's great-grandsire
of glorious and happy memory, the Emperor Maximilian."

Philip turned visibly pale, for he feared illness and death as few have
feared either.

"Why has no one ever told me that?" he asked in a muffled and angry
voice, looking round the room, so that the gentlemen and servants shrank
back a little.

No one answered his question, for though the fact was true, it had been
long forgotten, and it would have been hard for any of those present to
realize that the King would fear a da