“All of us, lady!” was the cry.
“It is well, for had there been any other traitor, I would have shot him with my own hand. Lieutenant, be good enough to go to the Arsenal, and desire the Director in my name to close the gates and not open them without orders from me. Then go to your own barracks, and bring me the keys of the magazine and armoury. Do the same at the other barracks. You will find me at the Palace.”
“Am I to leave you alone, lady?” he asked in a low voice.
Danaë looked round proudly. “I have two hundred swords of my own regiment to guard me,” she said, so that all could hear, and the swords leaped from their scabbards to the salute. A grey-haired sergeant close at hand plucked off his fur cap.
“The Colonel must wear our kalpak,” he said, and Danaë put it on and fastened the chin-strap. The soldiers shouted with delight, but her messenger still lingered.
“Would not a written order be safer, my lady?”
“I have not time to write,” said Danaë hastily, unwilling to confess the deficiencies of her education. “See, take this as a token.” With a pang she took off her wedding-ring and handed it to him. It was all she had. With instinctive chivalry he kissed it.
“The regiment is at the feet of the Lady Danaë and her husband,” he said, and rode away. Danaë surveyed her troops helplessly. They were all mixed up, and she did not know how to get them straight. With a sudden inspiration, she turned to the old sergeant. “Sergeant, I must take Milordo to the Palace at once, but I want the regiment to escort me—in proper order.”
The expedient succeeded. Two or three hoarse shouts, and the mob resolved itself into ranks as if by magic. Four men dismounted, and unrolling their cloaks, made a rough-and-ready litter. Under the vigorous superintendence of the sailor, Armitage was lifted and placed on it, and the cavalcade started for the Palace. Before they could reach it, a carriage with a lady in it appeared, driving to meet them, and Danaë recognised Madame Panagiotis, who stopped the carriage and came to speak to her. The Professor’s wife was a German lady of great propriety, and even at this crisis she managed to get in a glance of disapproval at Danaë on the Colonel’s saddle before she spoke.
“Lady, you must pardon us for not sending the carriage before, but his Highness was seized with another violent effusion of blood, and all our thoughts were for him.”