ections for troops to march on Berlin at once; but, needless to say,
these messages were deflected. As the tracks were torn up they were
obliged to travel by automobile, and as the bridges over the Kloonitz
Canal and the Oder tributaries had been blown up, they were unable to
ameliorate what must have been an apoplectic impatience. No doubt a few
of them are dead. Of course their progress has been watched and reported
every hour, but they have not been molested. We want them here. Only
their small air squadron has been shot down."

They felt their way along Unter den Linden by the trees and entered the
Opernplatz. Two biplanes awaited them before the arsenal. There were
lights in the great pile of the Hohenzollerns across the bridge. Uneasy
spirits prowled there, no doubt, but none of the women of the Imperial
family had made any attempt to escape, accepting the assurances of the
revolutionists that no harm should come to them, and, knowing nothing of
the thorough methods taken to reduce the army to impotence, awaited with
what patience they could muster--and royal women are the most patient in
the world--the invincible troops that must come within a day or two to
their rescue.

The two biplanes flew over to the streets east of the Emperor's palace
and hovered just above the house tops until the eyes of Gisela and
Mariette, now accustomed to a darkness unpierced by moon or stars, made
out a long line of moving blackness in the narrow gloom of the
Koeniginstrasse. The forward cars entered the palace from the
Schlossplatz, and as lights immediately appeared in the courtyards
Gisela saw eight or ten men alight stiffly and hurriedly enter the inner
portals. The other automobiles ranged themselves in an apparently
unbroken line on all sides of the palace. Gisela had amused herself
imagining the nervous speculations of those war-hardened potentates and
warriors as they crawled through the sinister darkness of the
capital--proud witness of a thousand triumphal marches; of the sharp and
darting gaze above the guns of the armored cars, expecting an ambush at
every corner. How they must hate a situation so utterly without
precedent.

Gisela almost laughed aloud as she saw the purple flag, denoting that
the Emperor was in residence, run up on the north side of the palace.
However, automatic discipline worked both ways.

Once more Berlin was as silent as if at rest for ever under the pall of
darkness that seemed to have descend