It was a clear, warm
night, but the stars seemed unusually little and remote because of the
aeroplanes, each trailing a searchlight, that drove hither and thither
across the blue. One great beam seemed to rest on the king for a moment
as he came out of the palace; then instantly and reassuringly it had
swept away. But while they were still in the palace gardens another
found them and looked at them.
'They see us,' cried the king.
'They make nothing of us,' said Pestovitch.
The king glanced up and met a calm, round eye of light, that seemed to
wink at him and vanish, leaving him blinded....
The three men went on their way. Near the little gate in the garden
railings that Pestovitch had caused to be unlocked, the king paused
under the shadow of an flex and looked back at the place. It was
very high and narrow, a twentieth-century rendering of mediaevalism,
mediaevalism in steel and bronze and sham stone and opaque glass.
Against the sky it splashed a confusion of pinnacles. High up in the
eastward wing were the windows of the apartments of the ex-king Egbert.
One of them was brightly lit now, and against the light a little black
figure stood very still and looked out upon the night.
The king snarled.
'He little knows how we slip through his fingers,' said Pestovitch.
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