His eyes were not looking at the sea of uncovered heads, but seemed fixed, under knitted brows, on the distance, as if they endeavored to decipher there some indistinct, shadowy form.

Did the king perceive in this moment the responsibility of one human being to carry such a load?
Did he wish in his innermost heart that he might share the weight of the decision with others--the representatives of the people--and not alone be forced to throw the dice deciding the life or death of hundreds and thousands?
Who can say?
At all events the powerful features of the king's face betrayed no such uneasy doubt--only a deep earnestness and an immovable steadiness of expression.

Belief in the divine right of his kingship gave him power over the minds of men, and he took his duties on him in this hour without weakness or failing, grasping with his human hand the obscure spiritual web of man's destiny, and with his limited intelligence trying to unravel the dark threads here and there, on which hung the healing and destruction of millions.

In such moments a whole people will become united into one being, swayed by the mastery of a single mind, and await the commands of a single will.

It comes, no one knows from whom--all blindly follow.