And, if they did know, would they care?
Save him from his enemies?
Perhaps. Almost certainly.
But from himself—an unwilling King?
A light, night breeze from the west, blew softly across the palace roof, rustling the silken folds of the Royal Standard, as it hung limply against the fifty-foot flagstaff, immediately above the King's head. With the quick, subconscious instinct of the trained sailor, he looked up to see if the flag was in order. To be "a sailor, not a Prince" had been, for years, his publicly avowed ambition, an ambition which had only recently been thwarted. His interest in this, no doubt, trivial matter of a flag was typical of the lasting impression which his long and happy years of naval service had left upon his character. In most things, small and great, the Navy had taught him, the Navy had formed him.
The flag was correct. The very knots in the rope left no loophole for criticism.
The small, gilt Royal Crown, which normally surmounted the flagstaff had been removed. In its place a large crown of coloured, electric lamps had been erected, as a finishing touch to the palace illuminations. Above the lights of this crown, the pointed shaft of the lightning conductor, which ran up the flagstaff, protruded, clearly visible against the night sky.
The lightning conductor had been left in position.
A slow smile lit up the King's face, and something of his weariness fell from him, as he saw the pointed shaft of the lightning conductor.
Here, at last, was reality, presented, paradoxically enough, in the form of an allegory, a symbol.