Karyl waited with a cold smile on his lips.  His face was pale but there was no touch of fear in the expression.  For a brief psychological moment there was absolute silence, then the Frenchman spoke again.  “Gentlemen, you are my prisoners.”  Turning to the Colonel, he added:  “You have clung to the waning dynasty, Von Ritz, until it fell, but your sword may still find service in Galavia.  I offer you the opportunity.  We have often crossed wits.  Now, for the first time, I win—­and offer amnesty.”

For a moment Von Ritz stood white and trembling with rage, then with his open hand he struck the smiling face that seemed to float tauntingly before his eyes, and drawing his sword, stepped between the King and the suddenly concentrated group of officers who moved frontward with a single accord, hands on swords.  They spread from a group into a line, and the line quickly closed in a circle around the King and the one man who remained loyal.

Karyl was himself unarmed.  He raised a restraining hand to Von Ritz’s shoulder, but before he could speak his head sagged forward under the impact of some sudden shock—­some blow from behind—­and things went dark about him as he crumpled to his knees and fell.

Von Ritz, struggling desperately with a broken blade in his hand was slowly overwhelmed by seeming swarms of men.  Like a tiger caught in a net, his ferocity gradually waned until, bleeding from scratch-wounds in a half-dozen places, he felt himself sinking into a haze.  His useless sword-hilt fell with a clatter to the tiles.  As his arms were pinioned by several of his captors, he was dreamily aware that music still floated up from the Botanical Gardens and the German man-of-war.  Nearer at hand, Von Ritz heard—­or perhaps dreamed through his stupor that he heard—­a voice exclaiming:  “Long live King Louis!”

There had been no noise which could have penetrated beyond the King’s suite.  Less than ten minutes had elapsed since the sentinel had been pacing below.  Jusseret, passing unostentatiously out through the Palace gate, glanced at his watch and smiled.  It had been excellently managed.

Later, Karyl recovered consciousness to find things little changed.  He was lying on a leather couch in his own rooms.  The windows on the small garden still stood open and the moon, riding farther down the west, bathed the outer world in shimmer of silver, but at each door stood a sentinel.

Karyl remembered that during Louis Delgado’s recent captivity he had fared in precisely the same manner, neither better nor worse.

The King rose, still a trifle unsteady from the blow he had received, and went out into the garden.  There was no effort on the part of the saluting soldier to halt him, and once outside he realized why this latitude was allowed him.  In addition to the man at the door, a second walked back and forth by the outer wall.  As Karyl stepped into the moonlight this man, himself in the shadow, saluted as his fellow had done.