E Phillips Oppenheim

Havoc E Phillips Oppenheim

Bellamy, King's Spy, and Dorward, journalist, known to fame in every English-speakingcountry, stood before the double window of their spacious sitting-room, looking down upon thethoroughfare beneath. Both men were laboring under a bitter sense of failure. Bellamy's face wasdark with forebodings; Dorward was irritated and nervous. Failure was a new thing to him-athing which those behind the great journals which he represented understood less, even, than he. Bellamy loved his country, and fear was gnawing at his heart. Below, the crowds which had been waiting patiently for many hours broke into a tumult ofwelcoming voices. Down their thickly-packed lines the volume of sound arose and grew, a faintmurmur at first, swelling and growing to a thunderous roar. Myriads of hats were suddenly tornfrom the heads of the excited multitude, handkerchiefs waved from every window. It was awonderful greeting, this."The Czar on his way to the railway station," Bellamy remarked. The broad avenue was suddenly thronged with a mass of soldiery-guardsmen of the mostfamous of Austrian regiments, brilliant in their white uniforms, their flashing helmets. The smallbrougham with its great black horses was almost hidden within a ring of naked steel. Dorward, an American to the backbone and a bitter democrat, thrust out his under-lip."The Anointed of the Lord!" he muttered. Far away from some other quarter came the same roar of voices, muffled yet insistent, charged with that faint, exciting timbre which seems always to live in the cry of the multitud