"Oh, save us, Princess," she cried.

"Be calm," said the princess, touching the white brow of the woman. "The
danger may soon pass; this portion of the palace is too strongly built
for them to injure it." Then she turned to Thorndyke: "We must hasten on
and find our way down; it would never do for us to be seen here." Then
she turned to the kneeling woman and said gently: "I hope you will say
nothing to the king of this; we lost our way in trying to get down from
the roof."

"I will not," gladly promised the woman, and seeing that Bernardino
knew not which way to turn, she guided them to a door opening into a
dimly-lighted corridor. "It will take you out to the balconies and down
to the audience-chamber," she said. The princess thanked her, and she
and the Englishman descended several flights of stairs. Reaching one
of the balconies they met the denser darkness of the outside and the
deafening clang and clamor of the multitude. There was no light of
any kind, and Thorndyke and his charge had to press close against the
balustrade of the balcony to keep from being crushed by the mad torrent
of humanity.

Now and then a strident voice would rise above the din:--

"Down with the palace! Death to the king!"

The trumpet in the tower sounded again and again.

"It is my father trying to attract their attention," explained the
princess. "Something very serious has happened for once. In speaking
of the time the sun went out before, he told me that he had made an
invention which, in such a crisis, would instantly restore confidence to
the people. I cannot understand why he does not use it. Oh, I am afraid
they will kill him!"

Thorndyke tried to console her, for he saw that she was weeping, but
just then there was a strange lull in the general tumult. What could
have happened?

"The dawn! the ideal dawn!" cried Bernardino, pointing to the eastern
sky. Thorndyke looked in wonder. A purple light had spread along the
horizon, and as it gradually softened into gray and slowly turned to
pink, the noise of the populace died down. No sound could now be heard
save the low groans of wounded men and women. What a sight met the view
as the rose-light shimmered over the city! The dead and dying lay under
the feet of the crowd. Almost every creature bore some mark of violence.
Eyes were blood-shot, clothing torn, limbs were bleeding, and mingled
fury and sudden hope struggled in each ashen face. The young trees and
shrubbery had b