"It's monstrous!" she said, and then she, too, fell back on silence.
Suddenly she rose to her feet, carried one hand to her heart and swayed uncertainly for a moment, steadying herself with one hand on the table.
The man turned, following her half-hypnotic gaze, in time to see Colonel Von Ritz bending over her hand. With recognition, Benton started up, then his jaw dropped and, doubting his own sanity, he fell back into his chair and sat gazing with blank eyes.
At Von Ritz's elbow stood Pagratide.
Slowly Benton came to his feet, his ears ringing. Then as Karyl turned from the girl and held out his hand to him, the American heard, as one listening through the roaring of a fever, some question about affairs in Galavia.
He heard Karyl answer, and though the words seemed to come from somewhere beyond Port Said, he recognized that the former King tried to speak in a matter-of-fact voice.
"I have no Kingdom. Louis took it."
Karyl had held out his left hand. The right was bound down in a sling. But these things were all vague to Benton because it seemed that the pilgrim's tom-toms were beating inside his brain, and beating out of time. He could see that Karyl's eyes also were weary and lusterless.
Turning with an excuse for travel-stain to be removed, Karyl halted.
"Benton," he said. There he fell silent. "Benton," he said again, forcing himself to speak in a voice not far from the breaking point, "Blanco—Blanco is dead."