He pushed it across the table toward Paul, who drew it nearer to him.
"Are you armed?" were the written words.
Paul crushed the paper in the hollow of his hand and threw it into the
fire, where it burned away. He also glanced at the clock. It was five
minutes to seven.
Suddenly the door was thrown open and a manservant rushed in--pale,
confused, terror-stricken. He was a giant footman in the gorgeous livery
of the Alexis.
"Excellency," he stammered in Russian, "the castle is surrounded--they
will kill us--they will burn us out----"
He stopped abashed before Paul's pointing finger and stony face.
"Leave the room!" said Paul. "You forget yourself."
Through the open door-way to which Paul pointed peered the ashen faces
of other servants huddled together like sheep.
"Leave the room!" repeated Paul, and the man obeyed him, walking to the
door unsteadily with quivering chin. On the threshold he paused. Paul
stood pointing to the door. He had a poise of the head--some sudden
awakening of the blood that had coursed in the veins of hereditary
potentates. Maggie looked at him; she had never known him like this. She
had known the man, she had never encountered the prince.
The big clock over the castle boomed out the hour, and at the same
instant there arose a roar like the voice of the surf on a Malabar
shore.
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