Once, as he threw himself into his chair, a tall, distinguished looking, grey-haired man, whom he recognized dully as his physician, detached himself from one of these little groups, approached him, held his pulse for a moment, and then, without speaking, handed him a glassful of some colourless stimulant which he drank, although it made no impression whatever on his palate.
Later, back in the glaring sunlight on the balcony once again, he was conscious of the help of the physician's draught. His senses were quickened. He felt less fatigued. But he knew, as the roar of the seething crowd round the palace came up to him once more, that this would have to be one of the last of his appearances. For a little longer, he could hold out, using the factitious energy with which the stimulant had temporarily endowed him. Then must come collapse—
At that moment, there was a sudden movement down below in the quadrangle.
A man, who seemed to dart out from amongst a little knot of men in civilian dress, on the left, just inside the quadrangle railings, a man on whose breast war medals glittered in the sun, dashed across the quadrangle, towards the main entrance of the palace.
The King watched him idly, curiously—
Suddenly, the man's right arm swung up, once, twice—
Then the King felt himself caught up, violently, from behind.
Flung, bodily, back from the balcony, through the huge open windows, he fell, heavily, on the floor of the little room within.
The windows were blocked now by a familiar tall figure, by a pair of familiar, broad shoulders—
A moment later there were two, short, sharp explosions. Bombs. Then a great clatter of falling glass—