Truxton King

Tullis was holding the Prince in his arms. Colonel Quinnox stood before them, keeping the babbling, leering beldame from thrusting her face close to that of the terrified boy. Young Vos Engo glowered at Truxton King from the opposite side of the room. Mr. Hobbs had safely ensconced himself in the rear of the six guardsmen, who stood near the door, ready to dash forth if by any chance the terrified horses should succeed in breaking away.

The Countess Marlanx, pale and rigid, her wondrous eyes glowing with excitement, stood behind John Tullis, straight and strong, like a storm spirit glorying in the havoc that raged about her. Time and again she leaned forward to utter words of encouragement in the ear of the little Prince, never without receiving a look of gratitude and surprise from his tall protector.

And all this time the goose-herd grandson of the Witch was dancing his wild, uncanny solo in the thick of the brew, an exalted grin on his face, strange cries of delight breaking from his lips: a horrid spectacle that fascinated the observers.

With incredible swiftness the storm passed. Almost at its height, there came a cessation of the roaring tempest; the downpour was checked, the thunder died away and the lightning trickled off into faint flashes. The sky cleared as if by magic. The exhibition, if you please, was over!

Even the most stoical, unimpressionable men in the party looked at each other in bewilderment and--awe, there was no doubt of it. The glare that Dangloss bent upon the hag proved that he had been rudely shaken from his habitual complacency.

"It is the most amazing thing I've ever seen," he said, over and over again.

The Countess Marlanx was trembling violently. Tullis, observing this, tried to laugh away her nervousness.

"Mere coincidence, that's all," he said. "Surely you are not superstitious. You can't believe she brought about this storm?"

"It isn't that," she said in a low voice. "I feel as if a grave personal danger had just passed me by. Not danger for the rest of you, but for me alone. That is the sensation I have: the feeling of one who has stepped back from the brink of an abyss just in time to avoid being pushed over. I can't make you understand. See! I am trembling. I have seen no more than the rest of you, yet am more terrified, more upset than Robin, poor child. Perhaps I am foolish. I know that something dreadful has--I might say, touched me. Something that no one else could have seen or felt."

"Nerves, my dear Countess. Shadows! I used to see them and feel them when I was a lad no bigger than Bobby if left alone in the dark. It is a grown-up fear of goblins. You'll be over it as soon as we are outside."