The two biplanes flew over to the streets east of the Emperor's palace
and hovered just above the house tops until the eyes of Gisela and
Mariette, now accustomed to a darkness unpierced by moon or stars, made
out a long line of moving blackness in the narrow gloom of the
Koeniginstrasse. The forward cars entered the palace from the
Schlossplatz, and as lights immediately appeared in the courtyards
Gisela saw eight or ten men alight stiffly and hurriedly enter the inner
portals. The other automobiles ranged themselves in an apparently
unbroken line on all sides of the palace. Gisela had amused herself
imagining the nervous speculations of those war-hardened potentates and
warriors as they crawled through the sinister darkness of the
capital--proud witness of a thousand triumphal marches; of the sharp and
darting gaze above the guns of the armored cars, expecting an ambush at
every corner. How they must hate a situation so utterly without
precedent.
Gisela almost laughed aloud as she saw the purple flag, denoting that
the Emperor was in residence, run up on the north side of the palace.
However, automatic discipline worked both ways.
Once more Berlin was as silent as if at rest for ever under the pall of
darkness that seemed to have descended from the dark and threatening
sky.
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