urnbull looked dimly surprised.

"I don't mind so much about being dead," he said, "but why should you
say that we shall be defeated?"

"The answer is very simple," replied Wayne, calmly. "It is because we
ought to be defeated. We have been in the most horrible holes before
now; but in all those I was perfectly certain that the stars were on
our side, and that we ought to get out. Now I know that we ought not
to get out; and that takes away from me everything with which I won."

As Wayne spoke he started a little, for both men became aware that a
third figure was listening to them--a small figure with wondering
eyes.

"Is it really true, my dear Wayne," said the King, interrupting, "that
you think you will be beaten to-morrow?"

"There can be no doubt about it whatever," replied Adam Wayne; "the
real reason is the one of which I have just spoken. But as a
concession to your materialism, I will add that they have an organised
army of a hundred allied cities against our one. That in itself,
however, would be unimportant."

Quin, with his round eyes, seemed strangely insistent.

"You are quite sure," he said, "that you must be beaten?"

"I am afraid," said Turnbull, gloomily, "that there can be no doubt
about it."

"Then," cried the King, flinging out his arms, "give me a halberd!
Give me a halberd, somebody! I desire all men to witness that I,
Auberon, King of England, do here and now abdicate, and implore the
Provost of Notting Hill to permit me to enlist in his army. Give me a
halberd!"

He seized one from some passing guard, and, shouldering it, stamped
solemnly after the shouting columns of halberdiers which were, by this
time, parading the streets. He had, however, nothing to do with the
wrecking of the statue of General Wilson, which took place before
morning.

CHAPTER II--_The Last Battle_

The day was cloudy when Wayne went down to die with all his army in
Kensington Gardens; it was cloudy again when that army had been
swallowed up by the vast armies of a new world. There had been an
almost uncanny interval of sunshine, in which the Provost of Notting
Hill, with all the placidity of an onlooker, had gazed across to the
hostile armies on the great spaces of verdure opposite; the long
strips of green and blue and gold lay across the park in squares and
oblongs like a proposition in Euclid wrought in a rich embroidery. But
the sunlight was a weak and, as it were, a wet sunlight, and was soon