t chieftainship a reality,
there was at least a chance that they might bring to a successful
conclusion the complex and difficult task which was before them.

* * * * *

They now drew near to the palace, which, as one descends the mountains,
is approached first. The town of San Ildefonso lay further to the right,
an indistinguishable mass of heaped roofs and turrets without a light or
the vestige of a street apparent in the gloom. It seemed to Rollo a
strange thing to think of this stricken town lying there with its dead
and dying, its empty tawdry lodgings from which the rich and gay of the
Court had fled so hastily, leaving all save their most precious
belongings behind, the municipal notices on the door, white crosses
chalked on a black ground, while nearer and always nearer approached the
fell gipsy rabble intent on plunder and rapine.

Even more strange, however, seemed the case of the royal palace of La
Granja. Erected at infinite cost after the pattern of Versailles and
Marly, the smallness of its scale and the magnificence of its natural
surroundings caused it infinitely to surpass either of its models in
general effect. It had, however, never been intended for defence, nor
had the least preparation been made in case of attack. It was doubtless
presumed that whenever the Court sojourned there, the royal personages
would arrive with such a guard and retinue as, in that lonely place,
would make danger a thing to be laughed at.

But no such series of circumstances as this had ever been thought of;
the plague which had fallen so heavily and as it seemed mysteriously and
instantaneously upon the town; the precincts of the palace about to be
invaded by a foe more fell than Frank or Moor; the guards disappeared
like snow in the sun, and the only protection of the lives of the
Queen-Regent and her daughter, a band of Carlists sent to capture their
persons at all hazards.

Verily the whole situation was remarkably complex.

The briefest look around convinced Rollo that it would be impossible for
so small a party to hold the long range of iron palisades which
surrounded the palace. These were complete, indeed, but their extent was
far too great to afford any hope of keeping out the gipsies without
finding themselves taken in the rear. They must hold La Granja itself,
that was clear. There remained, therefore, only the problem of finding
entrance.

Between the porter's lodge and the g