re of humidity under the dome; the train left the
station, drove into the early morning, which was lighter outside the
glass roof, glided as it were over the rainy town upon viaducts, with
canals, streets, squares beneath it; farther on, the pinnacles and
spires of the palaces and churches; the two marble towers of the
cathedral, with the doves nestling in the renascence tracery of the
lace-work of its steeples, standing out pale-white against the sky,
which was now turning blue; then, in the centre of the town--green and
wide, one oasis--the Elizabeth Parks, the white mass of the Imperial
and, behind that, the gigantic bend of the quays, the harbour with its
forest of masts, the oval curve of the horizon of the sea, all wet,
glittering, raining in the distance.

Othomar looked sombrely before him. Herman smiled to him:

"Come, don't think about it any more," he advised him, adding with a
laugh, "Our poor governor has had his appetite spoilt for to-day."

General Ducardi muttered an inward curse:

"Monstrously stupid," Herman heard him mumbling.

"I wanted to show them," said Othomar, suddenly.... He had intended to
say, "that I am not afraid of them." He threw a glance around him, saw
the eyes of Prince Dutri, his equerry, fixed upon him like a basilisk's
and let his voice change from proud to faint-hearted; sadly he
concluded, "that I love them and trust them so completely. Why need it
have happened like this?..."

His voice had sounded faint, to please Prince Dutri; but it displeased
the general. He first glanced aside at his crown-prince and then at the
Prince of Gothland; he drew a comparison; his eye continued to rest
appreciatively, in soldierly approval, on the smart naval lieutenant,
broad and strong, sitting with his hands on his thighs, bending forward
a little, looking back at the white capital as it receded before his
eyes through the slanting rainbeams....

* * * * *

After four hours' travelling, Novi, in the province of Xara. The train
stops; the princes and their suite alight, consult clocks, watches. They
express surprise, they walk up and down the platform for half an hour,
for an hour. Prince Herman engages in a busy conversation with the
station-master. It is still raining.

At last the special from Altara is signalled. The train glides in and
stops; the Emperor Oscar alights from the imperial compartment. He is
followed by generals and aides-de-camp: their u