that are fed on the County Council's
lightning.

"Certainly a remarkable phase," Mr. Clarkson observed, "although I
concluded that, in regard to beauty, the voice of the people is not
necessarily identical with the voice of God."

"Coachman!" said the big man, calling down to the driver, and imitating
the voice of a duchess. "Coachman! drive slowly twice round the Park,
and then 'ome."

XIX

ABDUL'S RETREAT

"No nasty shells here, Sire! No more screaming shells, and we are both
alive!" said the jester, lying on the ground at his master's feet.

It was in May 1909, and the large room was littered with bundles and
various kinds of luggage. Several women, covered from head to foot in
long cloaks and veils, lay about the floor or on the divans round the
walls, hardly distinguishable from the bundles except that now and then
they moaned or uttered some brief lamentation. From other parts of the
house came sounds of hammering and the hurried swish of cleaning walls.
From the long windows a deep and quiet harbour could be seen, and a few
orange lights were beginning to glimmer from the quay and anchored
boats. Across the purple of the water rose the blue mass of Olympus, its
craggy edges sharp against the sunset sky, and over Olympus a filmy
cloud was blown at intervals across the crescent moon.

"No more shells, Sire!" the jester kept repeating, and at the word
"shells" the women groaned. But the man whom he addressed was silent.
Since dawn he had said nothing.

"Last night no one thought we should be alive this evening, Sire," said
the jester. "We have gained a day of life. Who could have given us a
finer present?"

The half-moon disappeared behind Olympus, and out of the gathering
darkness in the chamber a voice was at last heard: "They have killed
other Sultans," it said. "They will kill me too."

At the sound of the voice the women stirred and whispered. One cried, "I
am hungry;" another said, "Water, O give me water!" but no one answered
her.

"Death is coming," the voice went on. "Every minute for thirty years I
have escaped death, and to-night it will come. What is so terrible as
death?"

"One thing is more terrible," said the jester, "it is death's brother,
fear."

"When death is quick, they say you feel nothing," said the voice, "but
they lie. The shock that stops life--the crash of the bullet into the
brain, the stab of the long, cold dagger piercing the heart between the
ribs, the slice o