There was peace, summer, perfume, in the moonlit air and Karyl smiled ironically as he reflected that even the bodyguard so carefully selected by Von Ritz might at any moment enter the place and raise the shout of "Long live King Louis!"
Leaning over the parapet, he could see one of his fantastically uniformed soldiery pacing back and forth before a sentry-box, his musket jauntily shouldered, and a bayonet glinting at his belt. Karyl stood looking, and his lips curled skeptically as he wondered whether the man would repel or admit assassins.
Somewhat wearily the King turned and leaned on the stone coping of the outer wall. He was at one end where a shadow cloaked him, but he lighted a cigarette and the match that flared up threw an orange-red light on his face, showing eyes which were lusterless. For a few moments he held the match in his hollowed palms, coaxing its blaze in the breeze. Before it had burned out there came a sharp report and Karyl heard the spat of flattening lead on the masonry at his back. The echo rattled along the rocky side of the hill. One of the sentry-boxes had answered his unasked question of loyalty.
He waited. There was no rush of feet. No medley of anxiously inquiring voices. Others had heard the report, of course, yet no one hastened to inquire and investigate. The King, pacing farther back where his silhouette was less clearly defined, laughed again, very bitterly.
Finally Von Ritz came. "It seems that we can rely on no one," he said. "The Palace Guard had been picked from the few in whom I still believed. I had hoped there was a trustworthy remnant."
"One of them has just tried a shot at me with one of my own muskets." The King spoke impersonally as though the matter bore only on the psychic question of trusting men. "The spot is there on the wall." Then he added with bitter whimsicality: "It seems to me, Colonel, that we have either very poor marksmen in our service, or else we supply them with very poor rifles."
For a moment Von Ritz almost smiled. "I was passing the point as he touched the trigger, Your Majesty," he replied with calmness. "I will personally vouch for his future harmlessness."
The lighted door, at the same moment, framed the figure of an aide. "Your Majesty," he said with a bow, "Monsieur Jusseret prays a brief audience."
Karyl turned to Von Ritz, his brows arching interrogation. In answer the Colonel wheeled and addressed the officer, who waited statuesquely: "His Majesty will not receive Monsieur Jusseret. Any matters of interest to France will receive His Majesty's attention when they reach him through France's properly accredited ambassador."
Yet five minutes later, Jusseret, escorted by several officers in the Galavian uniform, entered the garden through the door of the King's private suite. At the monstrous insolence of this forbidden invasion of Karyl's privacy, Von Ritz stepped forward. His voice was even colder than usual with the chill of mortal fury.