"Then let us out as near to the Tower as possible, cried the other.
"Here we are," cried the driver, a few minutes later, pulling up his half dead oxen and leaping to the ground. He threw off the covering and they lost no time in tumbling from their bed of melons to the cobble-stone pavement of a narrow alley into which he had turned for safety. "Through this passage!" he gasped, hoarse with excitement. "The Tower is below. Follow me! My oxen will stand. I am going with you!" His rugged face was aglow.
Off through the alley they hurried, King disdaining the pain his ankle was giving him. They came to the crowded square a few minutes later. The clock in the Cathedral pointed to twelve o'clock and after! The catastrophe had not yet taken place; the people were laughing and singing and shouting. They were in time. Everywhere they heard glad voices crying out that the Prince was coming! It was the Royal band that they heard through dinning ears!
"Great God!" cried Truxton, stopping suddenly and pointing with trembling hand to a spot across the street and a little below where they had pushed through the resentful, staring throng on the sidewalk. "There she is! At the corner! Stop her!"
He had caught sight of Olga Platanova.
The first row of dragoons was already passing in front of her. Less than two hundred feet away rolled the royal coach of gold! All this flashed before the eyes of the distracted pair, who were now dashing frantically into the open street, disregarding the shouts of the police and the howls of the crowd.
"An anarchist!" shouted King hoarsely. He looked like one himself. "The bomb! The bomb! Stop the Prince!"
Colonel Quinnox recognised this bearded, uncouth figure, and the flying, terrified girl at his heels. King was dragging her along by the hand. There was an instant of confusion on the part of the vanguard, a drawing of sabres, a movement toward the coach in which the Prince rode.
Quinnox alone prevented the dragoons from cutting down the pallid madman who stumbled blindly toward the coaches beyond. He whirled his steed after an astonished glance in all directions, shouting eager commands all the while. When he reached the side of the gasping American, that person had stopped and was pointing toward the trembling Olga, who had seen and recognised him.
"Stop the coach!" cried King. Loraine was running frantically through the ranks of horsemen, screaming her words of alarm.