In the Palace of the King | Page 5

companies of foot
guards took their places, marching across the broad space, in their
wrought steel caps and breastplates, carrying their tasselled halberds on

their shoulders. An officer's voice gave sharp commands. The gust that
had brought the rain had passed by, and a drizzling mist, caused by a
sudden chill, now completely obscured the window.
"Can you see anything?" asked Inez suddenly, in a low voice. "I think I
hear trumpets far away."
"I cannot see--there is mist on the glass, too. Do you hear the trumpets
clearly?"
"I think I do. Yes--I hear them clearly now." She stopped. "He is
coming," she added under her breath.
Dolores listened, but she had not the almost supernatural hearing of the
blind, and could distinguish nothing but the tramping of the soldiers
below, and her sister's irregular breathing beside her, as Inez held her
breath again and again in order to catch the very faint and distant
sound.
"Open the window," she said almost sharply, "I know I hear the
trumpets."
Her delicate fingers felt for the bolts with almost feverish anxiety.
Dolores helped her and opened the window wide. A strain of distant
clarions sounding a triumphant march came floating across the wet city.
Dolores started, and her face grew radiant, while her fresh lips opened a
little as if to drink in the sound with the wintry air. Beside her, Inez
grew slowly pale and held herself by the edge of the window frame,
gripping it hard, and neither of the two girls felt any sensation of cold.
Dolores' grey eyes grew wide and bright as she gazed fixedly towards
the city where the avenue that led to the palace began, but Inez,
bending a little, turned her ear in the same direction, as if she could not
bear to lose a single note of the music that told her how Don John of
Austria had come home in triumph, safe and whole, from his long
campaign in the south.
Slowly it came nearer, strain upon strain, each more clear and loud and
full of rejoicing. At first only the high-pitched clarions had sent their

call to the window, but now the less shrill trumpets made rich
harmonies to the melody, and the deep bass horns gave the marching
time to the rest, in short full blasts that set the whole air shaking as with
little peak of thunder. Below, the mounted officers gave orders,
exchanged short phrases, cantered to their places, and came back again
a moment later to make some final arrangement--their splendid
gold-inlaid corslets and the rich caparisons of their horses looking like
great pieces of jewelry that moved hither and thither in the thin grey
mist, while the dark red and yellow uniforms of the household guards
surrounded the square on three sides with broad bands of colour.
Dolores could see her father, who commanded them and to whom the
officers came for orders, sitting motionless and erect on his big black
horse--a stern figure, with close-cut grey beard, clad all in black saving
his heavily gilded breastplate and the silk sash he wore across it from
shoulder to sword knot. She shrank back a little, for she would not have
let him see her looking down from an upper window to welcome the
returning visitor.
"What is it? Do you see him? Is he there?" Inez asked the questions in a
breath, as she heard her sister move.
"No--our father is below on his horse. He must not see us." And she
moved further into the embrasure.
"You will not be able to see," said Inez anxiously. "How can you tell
me--I mean, how can you see, where you are?"
Dolores laughed softly, but her laugh trembled with the happiness that
was coming so soon.
"Oh, I see very well," she answered. "The window is wide open, you
know."
"Yes--I know."
Inez leaned back against the wall beside the window, letting her hand
drop in a hopeless gesture. The sample answer had hurt her, who could
never see, by its mere thoughtlessness and by the joy that made her

sister's voice quaver. The music grew louder and louder, and now there
came with it the sound of a great multitude, cheering, singing the march
with the trumpets, shouting for Don John; and all at once as the throng
burst from the street to the open avenue the voices drowned the clarions
for a moment, and a vast cry of triumph filled the whole air.
"He is there! He is there!" repeated Inez, leaning towards the window
and feeling for the stone sill.
But Dolores could not hear for the shouting. The clouds had lifted to
the westward and northward; and as the afternoon sun sank lower they
broke away, and the level rays drank up the gloom