The last guns of the royal salute had fired, and the cheering of the crowds had become like the murmur of a distant groundswell. The entrance hall of the Palace was lined with the tall Juventus guards, and up the alley between them came the new King-designate of Evallonia. There was now nothing of McTavish and less of Newsom about Prince John. The Juventus uniform well became his stalwart figure, and he was no more the wandering royalty who for some years had been the sport of fortune, but a man who had found again his land and his people. Yet in all the group, in the Prince and his staff and in the wing commanders, there was a touch of hesitation, almost of shyness, like schoolboys who had been catapulted suddenly into an embarrassing glory. The progress from Krovolin to Melina had been one long blaze of triumph, for again and again the lines of the escort had been broken by men and women who kissed the Prince's stirrup, and it had rained garlands of flowers. The welcome of Melina had been more ceremonial, but not less rapturous, and they had listened to that roar of many thousands, which, whether it be meant in love or in hate, must make the heart stand still. All the group, even the Countess Araminta, had eyes unnaturally bright and faces a little pale.
At the foot of the grand staircase stood Count Casimir and Jaikie. Ashie translated for the latter the speeches that followed. The Count dropped on his knee.
"Sire," he said, "as the Chamberlain of the king your father I welcome you home."
Prince John raised him and embraced him.
"But where," he asked, "is my beloved uncle? I had hoped to be welcomed by him above all others." His eye caught Jaikie's for a moment, and what the latter read in it was profound relief.
"Alas, Sire," said the Count, "His Royal Highness's health has failed him. Being an old man, the excitement of the last days was too much for him. A little more and your Majesty's joyful restoration would have been clouded by tragedy. The one hope was that he should leave at once for the peace of his home. He crossed the frontier last night, and will complete his journey to France by air. He left with profound unwillingness, and he charged me to convey to Your Majesty his sorrow that his age and the frailty of his body should have prevented him from offering you in person his assurances of eternal loyalty and affection."
The Countess's face had lost its pallor. Once again she was the Blood-red Rook, and it was on Jaikie that her eyes fell, eyes questioning, commanding, suspicious. It was to her rather than to Prince John that he spoke, having imitated the Count and clumsily dropped on one knee.
"I was faithful to your instructions, Sire," he said, "but a higher Power has made them impossible. I was assured that you would not wish this happy occasion to be saddened by your kinsman's death."
He saw the Countess's lips compressed as if she checked with difficulty some impetuous speech. "True public-school," thought Jaikie. "She would like to make a scene, but she won't."
Prince John saw it too, and his manner dropped from the high ceremonial to the familiar.
"You have done right," he said aloud in English. "Man proposeth and God disposeth. Dear Uncle Hadrian—Heaven bless him wherever he is! And now, my lord Chamberlain, I hope you can give us something to eat."