Down in an alley below the Tower, a trembling, worn team of oxen stood for a day and night, awaiting the return of a master who was never to come back to them. God rest his simple soul!
Truxton King picked himself up from the street, dazed, bewildered but unhurt. Everywhere about him mad people were rushing and screeching. Scarcely knowing what he did, he fled with the crowd. From behind him came the banging of guns, followed by new shouts of terror. He knew what it meant! The revolutionists had begun the assault on the paralysed minions of the government.
Scores of Royal Guardsmen swept past him, rushing to the support of the coach of gold. The sharp, shrill scream of a single name rose above the tumult. Some one had seen the Iron Count!
"Marlanx!"
He looked back toward the gory entrance to the Circus. There was Marlanx, mounted and swinging a sabre on high. Ahead was the mass of carriages, filled with the white-faced, palsied prey from the Court of Graustark. Somewhere in that huddled, glittering crowd were two beings he willingly would give his own life to save.
Foot soldiers, policemen and mounted guardsmen began firing into the crowd at the square, without sense or discretion, falling back, nevertheless, before the well-timed, deliberate advance of the mercenaries. From somewhere near the spot where Olga Platanova fell came a harsh, penetrating command:
"Cut them off! Cut them off from the Castle!"
It was his cue. He dashed into the street and ran toward the carriages, shouting with all his strength:
"Turn back! It is Marlanx! To the Castle!"
Then it was that he saw the Prince. The boy was standing on a seat on the royal coach of state, holding out his eager little hands to some one in the thick of the crowd that surged about him. He was calling some one's name, but no one could have heard him.