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TEE KING'S DAUGHTER
77
THE CAPTIVES
noticed a curtain before an unused alcove swaying slightly. Her overwrought senses, sensitive to the slightest impression, suggested danger, and creeping softly, she peered behind the curtain.
There stood her father and the guardsman, armed and waiting, so intent upon their dread task that she crept away unnoticed. Fleeing to the king's apartment, she paused outside the door, her mind a tumult of fear and excitement. Should she tell the king? Could she betray her father?
Scenes from her childhood floated thru her distracted brain as she hesitated. She saw her brave, handsome, loving father; her slender, goldenhaired mother; their pretty home, now desolate and forsaken. Gradually her feelings calmed, and her mind settled to a fixed purpose.
The king was sleeping when she entered the chamber, and she bent for a moment above his couch, her face illumined with passionate devotion.
"I will save you both," she murmured softly, as she turned away.
A few moments later, wrapped in the king's robe of state, his crown upon her head, his heavy sword in her hand, she passed down the corridor.
There was a quick rush from the alcove, a deep, skilful thrust of a gleaming dagger, the heavy footsteps of the fleeing conspirators echoing thru the corridor, then a long silence.
It was the king himself who found her, hung there, his golden crown upon her shining hair, his purple robe stained with her life-blood, ebbing fast away.
As he lifted her tenderly, the dark eyes opened wide, looking into his with the old, tender light.
"You are saved, my love," she sighed, with her last fluttering breath.
In vain the king sought for the murderer. No trace could be found. But at last an overseer came with a clue.
"The old chief of the Visigoths acts strangely," he said. "He is wilder than ever, to-day, and I heard him sav to the workman beside him, 'It