fantastic garb of the burlesque cities, some in the dullest modern
dress. The King stared at all of them, but none of them looked at the
King. Suddenly he stepped forward.

"Barker," he said, "what is all this?"

"Beaten," said the politician--"beaten all to hell!" And he plunged
past with nostrils shaking like a horse's, and more and more men
plunged after him.

Almost as he spoke, the last standing strip of fence bowed and
snapped, flinging, as from a catapult, a new figure upon the road. He
wore the flaming red of the halberdiers of Notting Hill, and on his
weapon there was blood, and in his face victory. In another moment
masses of red glowed through the gaps of the fence, and the pursuers,
with their halberds, came pouring down the lane. Pursued and pursuers
alike swept by the little figure with the owlish eyes, who had not
taken his hands out of his pockets.

The King had still little beyond the confused sense of a man caught in
a torrent--the feeling of men eddying by. Then something happened
which he was never able afterwards to describe, and which we cannot
describe for him. Suddenly in the dark entrance, between the broken
gates of a garden, there appeared framed a flaming figure.

Adam Wayne, the conqueror, with his face flung back, and his mane like
a lion's, stood with his great sword point upwards, the red raiment of
his office flapping round him like the red wings of an archangel. And
the King saw, he knew not how, something new and overwhelming. The
great green trees and the great red robes swung together in the wind.
The sword seemed made for the sunlight. The preposterous masquerade,
born of his own mockery, towered over him and embraced the world. This
was the normal, this was sanity, this was nature; and he himself,
with his rationality and his detachment and his black frock-coat, he
was the exception and the accident--a blot of black upon a world of
crimson and gold.

BOOK IV

CHAPTER I--_The Battle of the Lamps_

Mr. Buck, who, though retired, frequently went down to his big drapery
stores in Kensington High Street, was locking up those premises, being
the last to leave. It was a wonderful evening of green and gold, but
that did not trouble him very much. If you had pointed it out, he
would have agreed seriously, for the rich always desire to be
artistic.

He stepped out into the cool air, buttoning up his light yellow coat,
and blowing great clouds from his cigar, when a