"Pause, sire," exclaimed the count, in turn. "Hear the disturbances in the state hall! Who knows to what peril your majesty may be exposing yourself?"
"Sire," urged Baumgarten, whose taper had been extinguished by a puff of wind, "permit me at least to summon twenty of your guards."
"We enter now," responded the king with determination. And stopping before the lofty portal he said to the custodian: "Open this door without delay."
As he spoke he kicked the paneled oak, and the sound, reverberating among the echoes of the vaulted ceiling, thundered down the corridor like the noise of a cannon-shot.
The key rattled against the lock as the custodian, who was trembling violently, sought vainly to insert it in its groove.
"An old soldier trembling!" scoffed Charles. "Come, count, let us see you open the door."
"Sire," answered the count, falling back a step, "let your majesty command me to face the cannon of the Germans or the Danes, and I will obey unflinchingly. But here you are asking me to defy all hell!"
The king wrenched the key from the custodian's shaking hand.
"I see clearly," he observed contemptuously, "that this concerns myself alone."
And before any of his attendants could prevent him he flung the heavy oaken door wide, and crossed the threshold, repeating the customary "With God's help!"