“Where is Thord?” asked Ronsard presently.
“I do not know. The last I saw of him was on board the vessel that bore her coffin;—he was laying flowers on the deck. He was not, I think, in any of the smaller boats that accompanied it; he must have returned with the crowd on shore. He has his duties as Deputy for the city now, we must remember!”
Ronsard’s eyes flashed with a glimmer of satire in the firelight.
“If it had not been for Lotys, he would not be a Deputy, or anything else,—save perchance a Communist or an Anarchist!” he said; “he used to be one of the fiercest malcontents in all the country when I first came here. Many and many is the time I have heard him threaten to kill the King!”
“Ah!” said the Professor meaningly, the while he bent his eyes on the flickering fire.
Again a silence fell. The wind roared and screamed around the building, and in the pauses of the gale, the minutes seemed weighted with a strange dread. Every tick of the clock sounded heavy and long, even to the equable-minded Professor. The storm outside was growing louder and even louder, and his thoughts, despite himself, turned to the ocean-wildernesses over which Prince Humphry’s home-returning vessel must be now on its way—while that other solitary barque, unhelmed and unmanned, whose sail bore the name of ‘Lotys’ was also voyaging, but in a darker direction, down to death and oblivion, carrying with it, as he feared, all the love and heart of a King! Suddenly a loud knocking at the door startled them; and as Ronsard rose from his chair, amazed at the noise and Von Glauben did the same with more alacrity, a man with wind blown hair and excited gestures burst into the little room.
“Ronsard!” he cried; “The King—the King!”
He paused, gasping for breath. Ronsard looked at him wonderingly. His clothes were saturated with sea-water,—his face was pale—and his eyes expressed some fear that his tongue seemed incapable of uttering. He was one of the coral-fishers of the coast, and Ronsard knew him well.
“What ails you, man?” he asked; “What say you of the King?”
Holding the door of the cottage open with some difficulty, the coral-fisher pointed to the sky overhead. It was flecked with great masses of white cloud, through which the moon appeared to roll rapidly like a ball of yellow fire. The wind howled furiously, and the pines in the near distance could be seen bending to and fro like reeds in its breath, while the roar of the sea beyond the rocks was fierce and deafening.