第110章 THE NIGHT OF MASQUERADE(2)

Standing thus, he passed a hand over his eyes and stared again, two hectic spots burning now in his white cheeks. Abruptly, disregarding the superion, his trembling fingers snapped the blank seal and unfolded the letter addressed to his royal master. He was still reading when the chamberlain returned to announce that the King was pleased to see the Baron at once. He did not seem to hear the announcement. His attention was all upon the letter, his lips drawn back from his teeth in a grin, and beads of perspiration glistening upon his brow.

"His Majesty - " the chamberlain was beginning to repeat, when he broke off suddenly. "Your Excellency is ill?""Ill?"

Bjelke stared at him with glassy eyes. He crumpled the letter in his hand and stuffed one and the other into the pocket of his black satin coat. He attempted to laugh to reassure the startled chamberlain, and achieved a ghastly grimace.

"I must not keep His Majesty waiting," he said thickly, and stumbled on, leaving in the chamberlain's mind a suspicion that His Majesty's secretary was not quite sober.

But Bjelke so far conquered his emotion that he was almost his usual imperturbable self when he reached the royal dressing-room; indeed, he no longer displayed even the agitation that had possessed him when first he entered the palace.

Gustavus, a slight, handsome man of a good height, was standing before a cheval-glass when Bjelke came in. Francois, the priceless valet His Majesty had brought back from his last pleasure-seeking visit to pre-revolutionary Paris some five years ago, was standing back judicially to consider the domino he had just placed upon the royal shoulders. Baron Armfelt whom the conspirators accused of wielding the most sinister of all the sinister influences that perverted the King's mind - dressed from head to foot in shimmering white satin, lounged on a divan with all the easy familiarity permitted to this most intimate of courtiers, the associate of all royal follies.

Gustavus looked over his shoulder as he entered.

"Why, Bjelke," he exclaimed, "I thought you had gone into the country!""I am at a loss," replied Bjelke, "to imagine what should have given Your Majesty so mistaken an impression." And he might have smiled inwardly to observe how his words seemed to put Gustavus out of countenance.

The King laughed, nevertheless, with an affectation of ease.

"I inferred it from your absence from Court on such a night. What has been keeping you?" But, without waiting for an answer, he fired another question. "What do you say to my domino, Bjelke?"It was a garment embroidered upon a black satin ground with tongues of flame so cunningly wrought in mingling threads of scarlet and gold that as he turned about now they flashed in the candlelight, and seemed to leap like tongues of living fire.

"Your Majesty will have a great success," said Bjelke, and to himself relished the full grimness of his joke. For a terrible joke it was, seeing that he no longer intended to discharge the errand which had brought him in such haste to the palace.

"Faith, I deserve it!" was the flippant answer, and he turned again to the mirror to adjust a patch on the left side of his chin.

"There is genius in this domino, and it is not the genius of Francois, for the scheme of flames is my very own, the fruit of a deal of thought and study."There Gustavus uttered his whole character. As a master of the revels, or an opera impresario, this royal rake would have been a complete success in life. The pity of it was that the accident of birth should have robed him in the royal purple. Like many another prince who has come to a violent end, he was born to the wrong metier.

"I derived the notion," he continued, "from a sanbenito in a Goya picture.""An ominous garb," said Bjelke, smiling curiously. "The garment of the sinner on his way to penitential doom."Armfelt cried out in a protest of mock horror, but Gustavus laughed cynically.

"Oh, I confess that it would be most apt. I had not thought of it."His fingers sought a pomatum box, and in doing so displaced a toilet-case of red morocco. An oblong paper package fell from the top of this and arrested the King's attention.

"Why, what is this?" He took it up - a letter bearing the superion:

To His MAJESTY THE KING

SECRET AND IMPORTANT

"What is this, Francois?" The royal voice was suddenly sharp.

The valet glided forward, whilst Armfelt rose from the divan and, like Bjelke, attracted by the sudden change in the King's tone and manner, drew near his master.

"How comes this letter here?"

The valet's face expressed complete amazement. It must have been placed there in his absence an hour ago, after he had made all preparations for the royal toilette. It was certainly not there at the time, or he must have seen it.

With impatient fingers Gustavus snapped the seal and unfolded the letter. Awhile he stood reading, very still, his brows knit.

Then, with a contemptuous "Poof!" he handed it to his secretary.

At a glance Bjelke recognized the hand for that of Colonel Lillehorn, one of the conspirators, whose courage had evidently failed him in the eleventh hour. He read:

SIRE, - Deign to heed the warning of one who, not being in your service, nor solicitous of your favours, flatters not your crimes, and yet desires to avert the danger threatening you. There is a plot to assassinate you which would by now have been executed but for the countermanding of the ball at the opera last week. What was not done then will certainly be done to-night if you afford the opportunity. Remain at home and avoid balls and public gatherings for the rest of the year; thus the fanaticism which aims at your life will evaporate.

"Do you know the writing?" Gustavus asked.

Bjelke shrugged. "The hand will be disguised, no doubt," he evaded.

"But you will heed the warning, Sire?" exclaimed, Armfelt, who had read over the secretary's shoulder, and whose face had paled in reading.