The audience-chamber was hung with great mirrors in frames of tarnished gilt. In these Billy saw himself repro-duced in a wavering line of Billies that, like the ghost of Banquo, stretched to the disappearing point.

Of such images there was an army, but of the real Billy, as he was acutely conscious, there was but one. Among the black faces scowling from the doorways he felt the odds were against him. Without making a reply he passed out between the racks of rusty muskets in the anteroom, between the two Gatling guns guarding the entrance, and on the palace steps, in indecision, halted..