Philip eyed him with cold curiosity, for it was not an illusion, and he was really looking steadily at the dwarf.  After a long time, his protruding lower lip moved two or three times before he spoke.  The jester should have come forward at his first glance, to answer any question asked him.  Instead, his colourless lips were parted and tightly drawn back, and his teeth were chattering, do what he could to close them.  The Queen and Don John followed the King’s gaze and looked at the dwarf in surprise, for his agony was painfully visible.

“He looks as if he were in an ague,” observed Philip, as though he were watching a sick dog.

He had spoken at last, and the fear of silence was removed.  An audible sigh of relief was heard in the room.

“Poor man!” exclaimed the Queen.  “I am afraid he is very ill!”

“It is more like—­” began Don John, and then he checked himself, for he had been on the point of saying that the dwarfs fit looked more like physical fear than illness, for he had more than once seen men afraid of death; but he remembered the letter in his glove and thought the words might rouse Philip’s suspicions.

“What was your Serene Highness about to say?” enquired the King, speaking coldly, and laying stress on the formal title which he had himself given Don John the right to use.

“As your Majesty says, it is very like the chill of a fever,” replied Don John.

But it was already passing, for Adonis was not a natural coward, and the short conversation of the royal personages had broken the spell that held him, or had at least diminished its power.  When he had entered the room he had been quite sure that no one except the Princess had seen him slip the letter into Don John’s glove.  That quieting belief began to return, his jaw became steady, and he relaxed his hold on the tapestries, and even advanced half a step towards the table.

“And now he seems better,” said the King, in evident surprise.  “What sort of illness is this, Fool?  If you cannot explain it, you shall be sent to bed, and the physicians shall practise experiments upon your vile body, until they find out what your complaint is, for the advancement of their learning.”

“They would advance me more than their science, Sire,” answered Adonis, in a voice that still quaked with past fear, “for they would send me to paradise at once and learn nothing that they wished to know.”

“That is probable,” observed Don John, thoughtfully, for he had little belief in medicine generally, and none at all in the present case.

“May it please your Majesty,” said Adonis, taking heart a little, “there are musk melons on the table.”

“Well, what of that?” asked the King.

“The sight of melons on your Majesty’s table almost kills me,” answered the dwarf.

“Are you so fond of them that you cannot bear to see them?  You shall have a dozen and be made to eat them all.  That will cure your abominable greediness.”