to escape from Breslau came staggering into Great Headquarters with information that penetrated even that composite Prussian skull:  the women of Germany had risen en masse and effected a revolution.  Of course they refused to believe the worst—­that every ounce and inch of war material had been destroyed; and the entire Staff, escorted by a thousand troops—­all they had on hand—­started for Berlin.  They did not omit to wireless in both directions for troops to march on Berlin at once; but, needless to say, these messages were deflected.  As the tracks were torn up they were obliged to travel by automobile, and as the bridges over the Kloonitz Canal and the Oder tributaries had been blown up, they were unable to ameliorate what must have been an apoplectic impatience.  No doubt a few of them are dead.  Of course their progress has been watched and reported every hour, but they have not been molested.  We want them here.  Only their small air squadron has been shot down.”

They felt their way along Unter den Linden by the trees and entered the Opernplatz.  Two biplanes awaited them before the arsenal.  There were lights in the great pile of the Hohenzollerns across the bridge.  Uneasy spirits prowled there, no doubt, but none of the women of the Imperial family had made any attempt to escape, accepting the assurances of the revolutionists that no harm should come to them, and, knowing nothing of the thorough methods taken to reduce the army to impotence, awaited with what patience they could muster—­and royal women are the most patient in the world—­the invincible troops that must come within a day or two to their rescue.

The two biplanes flew over to the streets east of the Emperor’s palace and hovered just above the house tops until the eyes of Gisela and Mariette, now accustomed to a darkness unpierced by moon or stars, made out a long line of moving blackness in the narrow gloom of the Koeniginstrasse.  The forward cars entered the palace from the Schlossplatz, and as lights immediately appeared in the courtyards Gisela saw eight or ten men alight stiffly and hurriedly enter the inner portals.  The other automobiles ranged themselves in an apparently unbroken line on all sides of the palace.  Gisela had amused herself imagining the nervous speculations of those war-hardened potentates and warriors as they crawled through the sinister darkness of the capital—­proud witness of a thousand triumphal marches; of the sharp and darting gaze above the guns of the armored cars, expecting an ambush at every corner.  How they must hate a situation so utterly without precedent.

Gisela almost laughed aloud as she saw the purple flag, denoting that the Emperor was in residence, run up on the north side of the palace.  However, automatic discipline worked both ways.

Once more Berlin was as silent as if at rest for ever under the pall of darkness that seemed to have descended from the dark and threatening sky.