Truxton King

The scene that followed beggars all powers of description.

A score of men and horses lay writhing in the street; others crept away screaming with pain; human flesh and that of animals lay in the path of the frenzied, panic-stricken holiday crowd; blood mingled with the soft mud of Regengetz Circus, slimy, slippery, ugly!

Rent bodies of men in once gaudy uniforms, now flattened and bruised in warm, oozy death, were piled in a mass where but a moment before the wondering vanguard of troopers had clustered. For many rods in all directions stunned creatures were struggling to their feet after the stupendous shock that had felled them. The clattering of frightened horses, the shouts and screams of men and women, the gruesome rush of ten thousand people in stampede--all in twenty seconds after the engine of death left the hand of Olga Platanova.

Olga Platanova! There was nothing left of her! She had failed to do the deed expected of her, but she would not hear the execrations of those who had depended upon her to kill the Prince. We draw a veil across the picture of Olga Platanova after the bomb left her hand; no one may look upon the quivering, shattered thing that once was a living, beautiful woman. The glimpse she had of Truxton King's haggard face unnerved her. She faltered, her strength of will collapsed; she hurled the bomb in a panic of indecision. Massacre but not conquest!

Down in an alley below the Tower, a trembling, worn team of oxen stood for a day and night, awaiting the return of a master who was never to come back to them. God rest his simple soul!

Truxton King picked himself up from the street, dazed, bewildered but unhurt. Everywhere about him mad people were rushing and screeching. Scarcely knowing what he did, he fled with the crowd. From behind him came the banging of guns, followed by new shouts of terror. He knew what it meant! The revolutionists had begun the assault on the paralysed minions of the government.

Scores of Royal Guardsmen swept past him, rushing to the support of the coach of gold. The sharp, shrill scream of a single name rose above the tumult. Some one had seen the Iron Count!

"Marlanx!"

He looked back toward the gory entrance to the Circus. There was Marlanx, mounted and swinging a sabre on high. Ahead was the mass of carriages, filled with the white-faced, palsied prey from the Court of Graustark. Somewhere in that huddled, glittering crowd were two beings he willingly would give his own life to save.

Foot soldiers, policemen and mounted guardsmen began firing into the crowd at the square, without sense or discretion, falling back, nevertheless, before the well-timed, deliberate advance of the mercenaries. From somewhere near the spot where Olga Platanova fell came a harsh, penetrating command: "Cut them off! Cut them off from the Castle!"