Old Adelbert had been working his way impatiently. The temper of the mob was growing ugly. It was suspicious, frightened, potentially dangerous.
The cry of “To the Palace!” greeted his ears he finally emerged breathless from the throng.
He stepped boldly to the old stone archway, and faced a line of soldiers there. “I would see the Chancellor!” he gasped, and saluted.
The captain of the guard stepped out. “What is it you want?” he demanded.
“The Chancellor,” he lowered his voice. “I have news of the Crown Prince.”
Magic words, indeed. Doors opened swiftly before them. But time was flying, too. In his confusion the old man had only one thought, to reach the Chancellor. It would have been better to have told his news at once. The climbing of stairs takes time when one is old and fatigued, and has but one leg.
However, at last it way done. Past a room where sat Nikky Larisch, swordless and self-convicted of treason, past a great salon where a terrified Court waited, and waiting, listened to the cries outside, the beating of many drums, the sound of multitudinous feet, old Adelbert stumped to the door of the room where the Council sat debating and the Chancellor paced the floor.
Small ceremony tow. Led by soldiers, who retired and left him to enter alone, old Adelbert stumbled into the room. He was out of breath and dizzy; his heart beat to suffocation. There was not air enough in all the world to breathe. He clutched at the velvet hangings of the door, and swayed, but he saw the Chancellor.
“The Crown Prince,” he said thickly, “is at the home of the Americans.” He stared about him. Strange that the room should suddenly be filled with a mist. “But there be those—who wait—there—to capture him.”
He caught desperately at the curtains, with their royal arms embroidered in blue and gold. Shameful, in such company, to stagger so!