"It is not true!" cried Dhalmatia. "I, her father, ought to know!"
"Thou art a woman?" thundered the Patriarch above.
"I swear it," replied Solonika, but, even as she spoke, she turned and sped swiftly down the wide aisle toward the door, where I waited. Before the company had fully grasped the meaning of her words, the great voice of the Patriarch thundered and rose above the wild babel of sounds with the one clear word of dread significance:
I saw the King with a scream of agony fall forward on his face, while the Red Fox, beaten and undone, dropped to his knees upon the railing in an attitude of prayer. Fortunately for Solonika the armed men, who might have stopped her, were behind the women. No one appeared in the aisle. The court ladies were overcome with terror. On, on, she came running swiftly and lightly toward the door which I prepared to shut behind her as she passed.
One of the white clergy stood beside me with a brass incense burner in his hand. He dropped the burner to the floor as the Patriarch’s cry came to him, and prepared to stop the fleeing Prince. Just as Solonika was within his grasp I struck him a heavy blow and felled him in the aisle. She dashed by and I sprang through the great doorway with her. Both put our shoulders to the heavy oaken portal and swung it shut with a loud bang. I grasped the ponderous key in both hands and the rusty bolt found its iron socket. Even through the door I could hear the bellow of the high priest.
"Sacrilege! A woman hath defiled the altar."
We ran down the steps hand in hand and found Nick, all unconscious of the tragedy which had been enacted within, standing beside the tonneau door, waiting. The black cloth of the Church which hung from Solonika’s shoulders served to disguise her in the growing dusk from the soldiers who were still drawn up in front of the Cathedral, ready to conduct the new-made King to the Palace. The engine was playing havoc with their equilibrium.
"Is the ceremony over?" asked Nick, entirely ignorant of the true situation.
"It is over now, thank God," Solonika replied, but her real meaning escaped him.
The noise in the Cathedral became pronounced. Added to the bull-like tones of the Patriarch were women’s voices high and shrill, calling upon the empty air to "Stop her."