the city for years. They gazed, too, at the handsome yellow-haired
boy, and whispered among themselves, "Who is he? What has he done?"

John noticed that the faces of the people who gazed at him were set and
hard. They seemed sad and hopeless. He pitied them. "It is a kingdom
without love," he said to himself.

Yet, as they looked, their faces changed. A new something came into
their eyes. A whispering went around among the crowd, increasing to a
murmur, like the sound of bees.

They came at last to the palace, where the crowd was forced to pause.
But, surrounded by the band of soldiers, John and his party went in and
on, led by the Captain himself, at whose word or gesture doors flew
open and servants bowed.

Through long, glittering halls, lined with mirrors in which their rags
and dust, draggled feathers and matted hair showed pitifully, limped
John and his weary friends. Up a grand marble staircase, with
wondering footmen lining either side, pattered on muddy feet Brutus and
his gray brother, and the bear, clumsily erect at John's side. Behind
mewed the tired Blanche, whose kittens John carried in his arms, while
the carrier pigeon and the raven perched on his shoulder. But the
other birds had remained outside in the trees of the palace garden.




XXI