What was that?"

"It sounded like one of the big guns at the fort," said the gardener's son.

* * * * *

There was rioting in the city that night; and an angry, sullen crowd milled about the great gates before the palace. There were barricades in the streets and machine guns and soldiers and disheveled, loud-mouthed men making speeches.

In the palace a red-eyed boy faced General Count Jagst. "But I do not wish to run away," he said. "My grandfather did not run away."

"It was his wish, Your Majesty," said Jagst. "It was his last command to me."

"Very well, then, Jagst; I am ready."

Servants carried their portmanteaus to a postern door where waited one of the royal motors that the old king had so scorned. As they entered and drove away, a man watching them from a balcony sighed with relief and turned back into the palace. It was Captain Count Sarnya, Officer of the Guard.

Chapter 2

THE FIRST INTIMATION THAT THE BOY HAD OF THE DISASTER WAS the consciousness of being roughly awakened in the dead of the night-by what he knew not. The ship still trembled from the shock of the collision; but the noise of the impact had been lost to him in the depths of his deep, childish slumber.

As he rose upon one elbow in his berth he became aware of a great commotion about the steamer, and presently he heard the hoarse voices of the stewards as they called at the doorways of the staterooms, summoning the passengers on deck.

A moment later old Jagst burst into the room where the boy was already getting into his clothes.

"Quick, Your Majesty!" cried the old man. "Come on deck-there is no time to bother about clothes," and he grasped the boy by the arm to drag him from the stateroom.

"No, Jagst," exclaimed the boy, holding back. "Go yourself naked if you will, but for my part I prefer to be properly clothed," and notwithstanding the pleas and urgings of his companion the youth proceeded to don all his apparel before ever he would step his foot from the room.

When they reached the deck they found the utmost confusion reigning. Two boats filled with women and children already had gotten safely away; but now the steerage passengers, crazed with the panic of fear, had rushed upon the remaining boats where the officers and crew were making futile efforts to drive them back.

Women were alternately praying and screaming. Men ran hither and thither in futile search for boats into which they could place their loved ones. Jagst put a strong arm about the boy and pushed him through the fighting mob surrounding one of the boats.

"A child!" he cried to one of the officers. "Have you room for another child?" The old man knew that it was useless then to plead the cause of royal blood-for that night upon the stricken ship, with death reaching out to claim them all, men were stripped to the bone of their primitive brutality. As in the days of creation a man took only that precedence which his courage and brawn entitled him to.

The crew and the officers at this boat had succeeded in driving back the fear-mad mob, and some semblance of order had been restored there. At Jagst's question the officer took the boy by the shoulder and hustled him through the guard of seamen toward the boat, into which women and children were being hurried.

At the ship's side the boy glanced hurriedly about him. On either hand, held back before the revolvers of the crew, were women and children of the steerage. As he saw them his head went up and his young eyes blazed. He turned savagely upon the officer.

"Do you think," he cried, "that I will enter a boat while there are women still on board the ship?" and with that he turned quickly back into the crowd.

The sailors and some of the men passengers gave a little shout of admiration. A woman was called to take the boy's place in the boat. Someone strapped a life belt about the boy's body. The ship was listing terribly to starboard now. The seas were running frightfully high. The noise of the hurricane was deafening, and the lowering clouds that shut out the moon and the stars kept the whole scene enveloped in darkness.

A huge wave struck the ship full upon her port side. Without an instant's warning she rolled over and went down. The boy, with hundreds of others, had been thrown clear of the tangling wreckage of the decks. He found himself amidst a struggling mass of shrieking humanity. The life belt kept his head above water except when a great wave broke over him. The screaming of those about him, especially of the women, affected him much more than did his own danger; but almost immediately the cries lessened, and after each great wave had passed their numbers were gruesomely less.

The boy shuddered. In reality he was but a child-scarce fourteen.