The officer went forward bearing the royal order.
"Alicia," said the King, "there really is nothing to cry about; the most important thing is to show the people that we are not hurt. Pull yourself together, my dear. There! now we are starting again. And if you think you can manage it, stand right up at your window and I will stand at mine; then nobody can have any doubt at all."
He removed some shattered glass from her lap as he spoke, and gave an encouraging squeeze to her hand; and as the coach moved forward they stood up and confidently presented themselves to the public gaze.
Sure enough that sight had a magical effect equal to the controlling force of a thousand police. The crowd recovered its wits and allowed itself to be shoved back into place. Out through the gates sallied the piebald ponies; and from end to end all Regency Row broke into a roar. Ahead went the troops and the police, pressing back the once more amenable crowd; men and women were weeping, moist handkerchiefs were ecstatically waved, quite new and reputable hats were thrown up into air, and allowed to fall unreclaimed and unregarded. And truly it was a sight well calculated to stir the blood, for there, emerging unhurt from dust and smoke, from rumor and sound of terror, came the monarch and his Queen standing upon their feet and bowing undaunted to a furore of cries.
Through all that vast multitude word of the outrage had sped, like a black raven flapping its wings, charged ominously with tidings of death; and as confusion had spread wide nothing more could be heard, till once more a resumption of the processional movement was seen. Then came white-faced footmen quaking at the knees; after them eight piebald ponies rather badly behaved and requiring a good deal of holding in; and then Royalty, itself smiling and quite unharmed. And straightway the ordinary loyalty of a sightseeing Jingalese crowd was merged in a passionate and tumultuous cry of jubilant humanity; and the royal procession became a triumphal progress.
II
The Queen was still crying a little when they reached their destination; but she was very happy all the same, for she felt that between them they had risen to the occasion and had passed exceedingly well through an ordeal that falls only to few.
And now at the House of Legislature itself a strangely informal reception awaited them. Word of what had happened had gone in to the two Chambers, and human nature proving too strong, rules and regulations of ceremony had been dispensed with, and out had streamed judges, prelates, and laity in full force, to attend upon their own front door-step the belated arrival of their mercifully preserved Sovereign and his Queen.
And when they did arrive, the whole House of Laity there assembled broke into cheers; and not to be behindhand in demonstrations of loyalty, the Judges and the Bishops cheered too—a thing that none of them had done individually for years; and in their official and corporate capacity, judicial and ecclesiastical, never in their lives before.
Then as spokesmen for their respective parties, for Ministerialists and for Opposition, came the Prime Minister and the Archbishop, giving voice to the thankfulness that was felt by all.