Romance Island

by Zona Gale

  CHAPTER IX

  THE LADY OF KINGDOMS

  So there were St. George and Amory presently domiciled in a prince'spalace such as Asia and Europe have forgotten, as by and by theywill forget the Taj Mahal and the Bon Marche. And at nine o'clockthe next morning in a certain Tyrian purple room in the west wing ofthe Palace of the Litany the two sat breakfasting.

  "One always breakfasts," observed St. George. "The first day thatthe first men spend on Mars I wonder whether the first thing they dowill be to breakfast."

  "Poor old Mars has got to step down now," said Amory. "We are onefarther on. I don't know how it will be, but if I felt on Mars theway I do now, I should assent to breakfast. Shouldn't you?"

  "On my life, Toby," said St. George, "as an idealist you aredisgusting. Yes, I should."

  The table had been spread before an open window, and the windowlooked down upon the palace garden, steeped in the gold of the sunnymorning, and formal with aisles of mighty, flowering trees. Within,the apartment was lofty, its walls fashioned to lift the eye tolight arches, light capitals, airy traceries, and spaces of the hueof old ivory, held in heavenly quiet. The sense of colour, colourboth captive and atmospheric, was a new and persistent delight, forit was colour purified, specialized, and infinitely extended ineither direction from the crudity of the seven-winged spectrum. Theroom was like an alcove of outdoors, not divorced from the open airand set in contra-distinction, but made a continuation of its spaceand order and ancient repose--a kind of exquisite porch of light.

  Across this porch of light Rollo stepped, bearing a covered dish.The little breakfast-table and the laden side-table were set withvessels of rock-crystal and drinking-cups of silver gilt, andbreakfast consisted of delicately-prepared sea-food, a pulpy fruit,thin wine and a paste of delicious powdered gums. These things Rolloserved quite as if he were managing oatmeal and eggs and china. Onewould have said that he had been brought up between the covers of anancient history, nothing in consequence being so old or so new as toamaze him. Upon their late arrival the evening before he hadinstantly moved about his duties in all the quiet decorum with whichhe officiated in three rooms and a bath, emptying the oil-skins,disposing of their contents in great cedar chests, and, fromcertain rich and alien garments laid out for the guests, pretendingas unconcernedly to fleck lint as if they had been broadcloth fromFifth Avenue. He stood bending above the breakfast-table, his lean,shadowed hands perfectly at home, his lean, shadowed face allautomatic attention.

  "Rollo," said St. George, "go and look out the window and see ifSodom is smoking."

  "Yes, sir," said Rollo, and moved to the nearest casement and benthis look submissively below.

  "Everything quiet, sir," he reported literally; "a very warm day,sir. But it's easy to sleep, sir, no matter how warm the days are ifonly the nights are cool. Begging your pardon, sir."

  St. George nodded.

  "You don't see Jezebel down there in the trees," he pressed him, "orElissa setting off to found Carthage? Chaldea and Egypt all calm?"he anxiously put it.

  Rollo stirred uneasily.

  "There's a couple o' blue-tailed birds scrappin' in a palm tree,sir," he submitted hopefully.

  "Ah," said St. George, "yes. There would be. Now, if you like," hegave his servant permission, "you may go to the festivals or thefuneral games or wherever you choose to-day. Or perhaps," heremembered with solicitude, "you would prefer to be present at thewedding-of-the-land-water-with-the-sea-water, providing, as Isuspect, Tyre is handy?"

  "Thank you, sir," said Rollo doubtfully.

  "Mind you put your money on the crack disc-thrower, though," warnedSt. George, "and you might put up a couple of darics for me."

  "No," languidly begged Amory, "pray no. You are getting your periodsmixed something horrid."

  "A person's recreation is as good for him as his food, sir,"proclaimed Rollo, sententious, anxious to agree.

  "Food," said Amory languidly, "this isn't food--it's molten history,that's what it is. Think--this is what they had to eat at the cafesboulevardes of Gomorrah. And to think we've been at Tony's, beforenow. Do you remember," he asked raptly, "those brief and savourybanquets around one o'clock, at Tony's? From where Little Cawthorneonce went away wearing two omelettes instead of his overshoes? Don'ttell me that Tonycana and all this belong to the same system inspace. Don't tell me--"

  He stopped abruptly and his eyes sought those of St. George. It wasall so incredible, and yet it was all so real and so essentially,distractingly natural.

  "I feel as if we had stepped through something, to somewhere else.And yet, somehow, there is so little difference. Do you suppose whenpeople die _they_ don't notice any difference, either?"

  "What I want to know," said Amory, filling his pipe, "is how it'sgoing to look in print. Think of Crass--digging for head-lines."

  St. George rose abruptly. Amory was delicious, especially his drawl;but there were times--

  "Print it," he exclaimed, "you might as well try to print theabsolute."

  Amory nodded.

  "Oh, if you're going to be Neoplatonic," he said, "I'm off to hum anOrphic hymn. Isn't it about time for the prince? I want to get outwith the camera, while the light is good."

  The lateness of the hour of their arrival at the palace the eveningbefore had prevented the prince from receiving them, but he had senta most courteous message announcing that he himself would wait uponthem at a time which he appointed. While they were abiding hiscoming, Rollo setting aside the dishes, Amory smoking, strolling upand down, and examining the faint symbolic devices upon the walls'tiling, St. George stood before one of the casements, and lookedover the aisles of flowering tree-tops to the grim, grey sides ofMount Khalak, inscrutable, inaccessible, now not even hinting at thewalls and towers upon its secret summit. He was thinking howheavenly curious it was that the most wonderful thing in hiscommonplace world of New York--that is, his meeting withOlivia--should, out here in this world of things wonderful beyondall dream, still hold supreme its place as the sovereign wonder, thesovereign delight.

  "I dare say that means something," he said vaguely to himself, "andI dare say all the people who are--in love--know what it does mean,"and at this his spirit of adventure must have nodded at him, as ifit understood, too.

  When, in a little time, Prince Tabnit appeared at the open door ofthe "porch of light," it was as if he had parted from St. George inMcDougle Street but the night before. He greeted him with exquisitecordiality and his welcome to Amory was like a welcome unfeigned. Hewas clad in white of no remembered fashion, with the green gemburning on his breast, but his manner was that of one perfectlytailored and about the most cosmopolitan offices of modernity. Onemight have told him one's most subtly humourous story and restedcertain of his smile.

  "I wonder," he asked with engaging hesitation when he was seated,"whether I may have a--cigarette? That is the name? Yes, acigarette. Tobacco is unknown in Yaque. We have invented no coloniesuseful for the luxury. How can it be--forgive me--that your people,who seem remote from poetry, should be the devisers and popularizersof this so poetic pastime? To breathe in the green of earth and thelight of the dead sun! The poetry of your American smoke delightsme."

  St. George smiled as he offered the prince his case.

  "In America," he said, "we devised it as a vice, your Highness. Weare obliged to do the same with poetry, if we popularize it."

  And St. George was thinking:

  "Miss Holland. He has seen Miss Holland--perhaps yesterday. Perhapshe will see her to-day. And how in this world am I ever to mentionher name?"

  But the prince was in the idlest and most genial of humours. Hespoke at once of the matters uppermost in the minds of his guests,gave them news of the party from New York, told how they were incomfort in the palace on the summit of Mount Khalak, struck amomentary tragic note in mention of the mystery still mantling theabsence of the king and repeated the announcement already made byCassyrus, the premier, that in two days' time, failing the return ofthe sovereign, t
he king's daughter would be publicly recognized,with solemn ceremonial, as Princess of Yaque. Then he turned to St.George, his eyes searching him through the haze of smoke.

  "Your own coming to Yaque," he said abruptly, "was the result of asudden decision?"

  "Quite so, your Highness," replied St. George. "It was whollyunexpected."

  "Then we must try to make it also an unexpected pleasure," suggestedthe prince lightly. "I am come to ask you to spend the day with mein looking about Med, the King's City."

  He dropped the monogrammed stub of his cigarette in a little jar ofsmaragdos, brought, he mentioned in passing, from a despoiled templeof one of the Chthonian deities of Tyre, and turned toward hisguests with a winning smile.

  "Come," he said, "I can no longer postpone my own pleasure inshowing you that our nation is the Lady of Kingdoms as once wereBabylon and Chaldea."

  It was as if the strange panorama of the night before had once moreopened its frame, and they were to step within. As the prince leftthem St. George turned to Rollo for the novelty of addressing areality.

  "How do you wish to spend the day, Rollo?" he asked him.

  Rollo looked pensive.

  "Could I stroll about a bit, sir?" he asked.

  "Stroll!" commanded St. George cheerfully.

  "Thank you, sir," said Rollo. "I always think a man can best learnby observation, sir."

  "Observe!" supplemented his master pleasantly, as a detachment ofthe guard appeared to conduct Amory and him below.

  "Don't black up the sandals," Amory warned Rollo as he left him,"and be back early. We may want you to get us ready for a mastodonhunt."

  "Yes, sir," said Rollo with simplicity, "I'll be back quite sometime before tea-time, sir."

  St. George was smiling as they went down the corridor. He had beenvain of his love that, in Yaque as in America, remained the thing itwas, supreme and vital. But had not the simplicity of Rollo takenthe leap in experience, and likewise without changing? For a moment,as he went down the silent corridors, lofty as the woods, vocal withfaint inscriptions on the uncovered stone, the old human doubtassailed him. The very age of the walls was a protest against theassumption that there is a touchstone that is ageless. Even if thereis, even if love is unchanging, the very temper of unconcern of hisvalet might be quite as persistent as love itself. But the galleryemptying itself into a great court open to the blue among gravenrafters, St. George promptly threw his doubt to the fresh,heaven-kissing wind that smote their faces, and against mystery andargument and age alike he matched only the happy clamour of hisblood. Olivia Holland was on the island, and all the age was gold.In Yaque or on the continents there can be no manner of doubt thatthis is love, as Love itself loves to be.

  They emerged in the appeasing air of that perfect morning, and thesweetness of the flowering trees was everywhere, and wide roadspointed invitingly to undiscovered bournes, and overhead in thecurving wind floated the flags and streamers of those joyous, wizardcolours.

  They went out into the rejoicing world, and it was like penetratingat last into the heart of that "land a great way off" which holdscaptive the wistful thought of the children of earth, and revealsitself as elusively as ecstasy. If one can remember some journeythat he has taken long ago--Long Ago and Far Away are the greattouchstones--and can remember the glamourie of the hour and forgetthe substructure of events, if he can recall the pattern and forgetthe fabric, then he will understand the spirit that informed thatfirst morning in Yaque. It was a morning all compact of wonder anddelight--wonder at that which half-revealed itself, delight in theever-present possibility that here, there, at any moment, OliviaHolland might be met. As for the wonder, that had taken some threethousand years to accumulate, as nearly as one could compute; and asfor the delight, that had taken less than ten days to make possible;and yet there is no manner of doubt which held high place in themind of St. George as the smooth miles fled away from hurryingwheels.

  Such wheels! Motors? St. George asked himself the question as hetook his place beside the prince in the exquisitely light vehicle,Amory following with Cassyrus, and the suites coming after, like thepath from a lanthorn. For the vehicles were a kind of electricmotor, but constructed exquisitely in a fashion which, far fromaffronting taste, delighted the eye by leading it to lines ofunguessed beauty. They were motors as the ancients would have builtthem if they had understood the trick of science, motors in whichthe lines of utility were veiled and taught to be subordinate. Thespeed attained was by no means great, and the motion was gentle andsacrificed to silence. And when St. George ventured to ask how theyhad imported the first motors, the prince answered that as Columbuswas sailing on the waters of the Atlantic at adventure, the peopleof Yaque were touring the island in electric motors of much the samedescription, though hardly the clumsiness, of those which he hadnoticed in New York.

  This was the first astonishment, and other astonishments were tofollow. For as they went about the island it was revealed that theremainder of the world is asleep with science for a pillow and thenight-lamp of philosophy casting shadows. Yet as the princeexhibited wonders, one after another, St. George, dimly consciousthat these are the things that men die to discover, would have giventhem all for one moment's meeting with Olivia on that high-road ofMed. If you come to think of it, this may be why science always hasmoved so slowly, creeping on from point to point.

  Thus it came about that when Prince Tabnit indicated a low,pillared, temple-like building as the home of perpetual motion,which gave the power operating the manufactures and water supply ofthe entire island, St. George looked and understood and resolved togo over the temple before he left Yaque, and then fell a-wonderingwhether, when he did so, Olivia would be with him. When the princeexplained that it is ridiculous to suppose that combustion is thechief means of obtaining light and heat, or that Heaven provideddivinely-beautiful forests for the express purpose of their beingburned up; and when he told him that artificial light and heat wereeffected in a certain reservoir (built with a classic regard for thedignity of its use as a link with unspoken forces) St. Georgelistened, and said over with attention the name of the substanceacted upon by emanations--and wondered if Olivia were not afraid ofit. So it was all through the exhibition of more wonders scientificand economic than any one has dreamed since every one became avictim of the world's habit of being afraid to dream. Although it istrue that when St. George chanced to observe that there were aboutMed few farms of tilled ground, the prince's reply did startle himinto absorbed attention:

  "You are referring to agriculture?" Prince Tabnit said after amoment's thought. "I know the word from old parchments brought fromPhoenicia by our ancestors. But I did not know that the art is inpractice anywhere in the world. Do you mean to assure me," cried theprince suddenly, "that the vegetables which I ate in America wereraised by what is known as 'tilling the soil'?"

  "How else, your Highness?" doubted St. George, wondering if he wereresponsible for the fading mentality of the prince.

  Prince Tabnit looked away toward the splendour of some new thought.

  "How beautiful," he said, "to subsist on the sun and the dust.Beautiful and lost, like the dreams of Mitylene. But I feel as if Iwere reading in Genesis," he declared. "Is it possible that in this'age of science' of yours it has not occurred to your people that ifplants grow by slowly extracting their own elements from the soil,those elements artificially extracted and applied to the seed willrender growth and fruitage almost instantaneous?"

  "At all events we've speculated about it," St. George hastened toimpart with pride, "just as we do about telephones that will letpeople see one another when they talk. But nearly every one smilesat both."

  "Don't smile," the prince warned him. "Yaque has perfected boththose inventions only since she ceased to smile at theirprobability. Nothing can be simpler than instantaneous vegetation.Any Egyptian juggler can produce it by using certain acids. We haveimproved the process until our fruits and vegetables are produced asthey are needed, from hour to hour. This w
as one of the so-calledsecrets of the ancient Phoenicians--has it never occurred to you asimportant that the Phoenician name for Dionysos, the god ofwine-growers, was lost?"

  Mentally St. George added another barrel to the cargo of _TheAloha_, and wondered if the _Sentinel_ would start botanical gardensand a lighting plant and turn them to the account of advertisers.

  All the time, mile upon mile, was unrolling before them theunforgetable beauty of the island. So perfectly were its featuresmarshaled and so exact were its proportions that, as in many greatexperiences and as in all great poems, one might not, withoutfamiliarity, recall its detail, but must instead remain wrapped inthe glory of the whole. The avenues, wide as a river, swept betweenwhite banks of majestic buildings combining with the magic of greatmass the pure beauty of virginal line. Line, the joy of line, theglory of line, almost, St. George thought, the divinity of line, waseverywhere manifest; and everywhere too the divinity of colour, nolonger a quality extraneous, laid on as insecure fancy dictates,but, by some law long unrevealed, now actually identified with theobject which it not so much decorated as purified. The mostinteresting of the thoroughfares led from the Eurychorus, or publicsquare, along the lagoon. This fair water, extending from Med toMelita, was greenly shored and dotted with strange little pleasurecrafts with exquisite sweeping prows and silken canopies. Before awhite temple, knee-deep in whose flowered ponds the ibises dozedand contemplated, was anchored the imperial trireme, withdelicately-embroidered sails and prow and poop of forgotten metals.From within, temple music sounded softly and was never permitted tobe silenced, as the flame of the Vestals might never beextinguished. Here on the shores had begun the morning traffic ofitinerant merchants of Med and Melita, compelled by law to carry ontheir exchange in the morning only, when the light is least lovely.Upon canopied wagons drawn by strange animals, with shining horns,were displayed for sale all the pleasantest excuses forcommerce--ostrich feathers, gums, gems, quicksilver, papyrus, balesof fair cloth, pottery, wine and oranges. The sellers of salt andfish and wool and skins were forced down under the wharfs of thelagoon, and there endeavoured to attract attention by displayingfanciful and lovely banners and by liberating faint perfumes of thenative orris and algum. Street musicians, playing tunefully upon thezither and upon the crowd, wandered, wearing wreaths of fir, andclustered about stalls where were offered tenuous blades, andstatues, and temple vessels filled with wine and flowers.

  At the head of the street leading to the temple of Baaltis (MyLady--Aphrodite) the prince's motor was checked while a processionof pilgrims, white-robed and carrying votive offerings, passedbefore them, the votive tablet to the Lady Tanith and the Face ofBaal being borne at the head of the line by a dignitary in a smartelectric victoria. This was one of the frequent Festival Embassiesto Melita, to combine religious rites with mourning games and thededication of the tablet, and there was considerable delay incidentto the delivery of a wireless message to the dignitary with thetablet of the Semitic inscription. St. George wondered vaguely why,in a world of marvels, progress should not already have outstrippedthe need of any communication at all. This reminded him of somethingat which the prince had hinted away off in another aeon, in anotherworld, when St. George had first seen him, and there followed tenminutes of talk not to be forgotten.

  "Would it be possible for you to tell me, your Highness," St. Georgeasked,--and thereafter even a lover must have forgiven the briefapostasy of his thought--"how it can be that you know the English?How you are able to speak it here in Yaque?"

  The motor moved forward as the procession passed, and struck into amagnificent country avenue bordered by trees, tall as elms andfragrant as acacias.

  "I can tell you, yes," said the prince, "but I warn you that youwill not in the least understand me. I dare say, however, that I mayillustrate by something of which you know. Do there chance to be,for example, any children in America who are regarded as prodigiesof certain understanding?"

  "You mean," St. George asked, "children who can play on a musicalinstrument without knowing how they do it, and so on?"

  "Quite so," said the prince with interest.

  "Many, your Highness," affirmed St. George. "I myself know a childof seven who can play most difficult piano compositions without everhaving been taught, or knowing in the least how he does it."

  "Do you think of any one else?" asked the prince.

  "Yes," said St. George, "I know a little lad of about five, I shouldsay, who can add enormous numbers and instantly give the accurateresult. And he has no idea how he does that, and no one has evertaught him to count above twelve. Oh--every one knows those cases, Ifancy."

  "Has any one ever explained them, Mr. St. George?" asked the prince.

  "How should they?" asked St. George simply. "They are prodigies."

  "Quite so," said the prince again. "It is almost incredible thatthese instances seem to suggest to no one that there must be otherways to 'learn' music and mathematics--and, therefore, everythingelse--than those known to your civilization. Let me assure you thatsuch cases as these, far from being miracles and prodigies, areperfectly normal when once the principle is understood, as we ofYaque understand it. It is the average intelligence among yourpeople which is abnormal, inasmuch as it is unable to perform thesefunctions which it was so clearly intended to exercise."

  "Do you mean," asked St. George, "that we need not learn--as weunderstand 'learn'?"

  "Precisely," said the prince simply. "You are accustomed, I was toldin New York, to say that there is 'no royal road to learning.' Onthe contrary, I say to you that the possibilities of these childrenare in every one. But to my intense surprise I find that we of Yaqueare the only ones in the world who understand how to use thesepossibilities. Our system of education consists simply in masteringthis principle. After that, all knowledge--all languages, forinstance--everything--belongs to us."

  St. George looked away to the rugged sides of Mount Khalak, lying inits clouds of iris morning mist, unreal as a mountain of UltimaThule. It was all right--what he had just been hearing was a part ofthis ultimate and fantastic place to which he had come. And yet _he_was real enough, and so, according to certain approved dialectic,perhaps these things were realities, too. He stole a glance at theprince's profile. Here was actually a man who was telling him thathe need not have faced Latin and Greek and calculus; that they mighthave been his of his own accord if only he had understood how tocall them in!

  "That would make a very jolly thing of college," he pensivelyconceded. "You could not show me how it is managed, your Highness?"he besought. "That will hardly come in bulk, too--"

  The prince shook his head, smiling.

  "I could not 'show you,' as you say," he answered, "any more than Icould, at present, send a wireless communication without theapparatus--though it will be only a matter of time until that isaccomplished, too."

  St. George pulled himself up sharply. He glanced over his shoulderand saw Amory polishing his pince-nez and looking quite as if hewere leaning over hansom-doors in the park, and he turned quickly tothe prince, half convinced that he had been mocked.

  "Suppose, your Highness," he said, "that I were to print what youhave just told me on the front page of a New York morning paper,for people to glance over with their coffee? Do you think that eventhe most open-minded among them would believe that there is such aplace as Yaque?"

  The prince smiled curiously, and his long-fringed lids drooped inmomentary contemplation. The auto turned into that majestic avenuewhich terminates in the Eurychorus before the Palace of the Litany.St. George's eye eagerly swept the long white way. At its far endstood Mount Khalak. _She_ must have passed over this very ground.

  "There is," the prince's smooth voice broke in upon his dream, "nosuch place as Yaque--as you understand 'place.'"

  "I beg your pardon, your Highness?" St. George doubted blankly. GoodHeavens. Maybe there had arrived in Yaque no Olivia, as heunderstood Olivia.

  "You showed some surprise, I remember," continued the prince, "wh
enI told you, in McDougle Street, that we of Yaque understand theFourth Dimension."

  McDougle Street. The sound smote the ear of St. George much as wouldthe clang of the fire patrol in the midst of light opera.

  "Yes, yes," he said, his attention now completely chained. Yet eventhen it was not that he cared so absorbingly about the FourthDimension. But what if this were all some trick and if, in thisstrange land, Olivia had simply been flashed before his eyes by theaid of mirrors?

  "I find," said the prince with deliberation, "that in America youare familiar with the argument that, if your people understoodonly length and breadth and did _not_ understand the ThirdDimension--thickness--you could not then conceive of lifting, say,a square or a triangle and laying it down upon another square ortriangle. In other words, you would not know anything of _up_ and_down_."

  St. George nodded. This was the familiar talk of collegeclass-rooms.

  "As it is," pursued the prince, "your people do perfectly understandlifting a square and placing it upon a square, or a triangle upon atriangle. But you do not know anything about placing a cube upon acube, or a pyramid upon a pyramid _so that both occupy the samespace at the same time_. We of Yaque have mastered that principlealso," the prince tranquilly concluded, "and all that of which thisis the alphabet. That is why we are able to keep our island unknownto the world--not to say 'invisible.'"

  For a moment St. George looked at him speechlessly; then, in spiteof himself, a slow smile overspread his face.

  "But," he said, "your Highness, there is not a mathematician in thecivilized world who has not considered that problem and cast itaside, with the word that if fourth-dimensional space does exist itcan not possibly be inhabited."

  "Quite so," said the prince, "and yet here we are."

  And, if you come to think of it--as St. George did--that is the onlyanswer to a world of impossibilities already proved possible. Butthe vista which all this opened smote him with irresistible humour.

  "Ah well now, I suppose, your Highness," he said, "that our oceanliners sail clean through the island of Yaque, then, and never evenhave their smoke pushed sidewise?"

  The prince laughed pleasantly.

  "Have you ever," he asked, "had occasion to explain the principlesof hydraulics, or chess, or philosophical idealism to athree-year-old child, or a charwoman? You must forgive me, butreally I can think of no better comparison. I am quite as powerlessnow as you have been if you have ever attempted it. I can onlyassure you that such things _are_. Without Jarvo or Akko or some onewho understood, you might have sailed the high seas all your lifeand never have come any nearer to Yaque."

  St. George reflected.

  "Is Yaque the only example of this kind of thing," he asked, "thatthe Fourth Dimension would reveal?"

  "By no means," said the prince in surprise, "the world isliterally teeming with like revelations, once the key is in yourhands. The Fourth Dimension is only the beginning. We utilize thatto isolate our island. But the higher dimensions are graduallybeing conquered, too. Nearly all of us can pass into the Fifth atwill, 'disappearing,' as you have the word, from the lowerdimensions. It is well-known to you that in a land whose peopleknew length and breadth, but no _up_ and _down_, an object mightbe pushed, but never lifted _up_ or put _down_. If it were to belifted, such a people would believe it to have 'disappeared.' So,from you who know only three dimensions, Yaque has 'disappeared,'until one of us guides you here. Also we pass at will into theFifth Dimension and even higher, and seem to 'disappear'; the onlydifference is that, there, we should not be able yet to guide onewho did not himself understand how to pass there. Just as one whounderstands how to die and to come to life, as you have thephrase, would not be able to take with him any one who did notunderstand how to take himself there..."

  St. George listened, grasping at straws of comprehension,remembering how he had heard all this theorized about and smiled at;but most of all he was beset by a practical consideration.

  "Then," he said suddenly, the question leaping to his lips almostagainst his will, "if you hold this key to all knowledge, how is itthat the king--Mr. Holland--could get away from you, and theHereditary Treasure be lost?"

  The prince sighed profoundly.

  "We have by no means," he said, "perfected our knowledge. We are atone with the absolute in knowledge--true. But the affairs of everyday most frequently elude us. Not even the most advanced among usare perfect intuitionists. We have by no means reached thatdesirable and inevitable day when our minds shall flow together,without need of communication, without possibility of secret. Westill suffer the disadvantage of a slight barrier of personality."

  "And it is into one of these lapses," thought St. Georgeirreverently, "that the king has disappeared." Aloud he askedcuriously concerning a matter which was every moment becoming moreincomprehensible.

  "But how, your Highness," he said simply, "did your people everconsent to have an American for your king?"

  Before the prince could reply there occurred a phenomenon that sentall thought of such insubstantialities as the secrets of the FourthDimension far in the background.

  The prince's motor, closely followed by the others of the train, hadreached a little eminence from which the island unrolled in fairpatterns. Before them the smooth road unwound in varied light. Attheir left lay a still grove from whose depths was glimpsed a slimneedle of a tower, rising, arrow-like, from the green. In thedistance lay Med, with shining domes. The water of the lagoon gavebrightness here and there among the hills. And as St. George and theprince looked over the prospect they saw, far down the avenue towardMed, a little, moving speck--a speck moving with a rapidity whichneither the prince's motor nor any known motor of Yaque had everbefore permitted itself.

  In an instant the six members of the Royal Golden Guard, who uponbeautiful, spirited horses rode in advance of the train of theprince, wheeled and thundered back, lifting glittering hands ofwarning. "Aside! Aside!" shrieked the main Golden Guard, "a motor iswithout control!"

  Immediately there was confusion. At a touch the prince's car wasdrawn to the road's extreme edge, and the Golden Guards rodefuriously back along the train, hailing the peaceful, slow-goingmachines into orderly retreat. They were all sufficiently amenable,for at sight of the alarming and unprecedented onrush of the growingspeck that was bearing full down upon them, anxiety sat upon everyface.

  St. George watched. And as the car drew nearer the thought which, atfirst sight of its speed, had vaguely flashed into being, tookdefinite shape, and his blood leaped to its music. Whose hand wouldbe upon that lever, whose daring would be directing its flight,whose but one in all Yaque--and that Olivia's?

  It was Olivia. That was plain even in the mere instant that it tookthe great, beautiful motor, at thirty miles an hour, to flash pastthem. St. George saw her--coat of hunting pink and fluttering veiland shining eyes; he was dimly conscious of another little figurebeside her, and of the unmistakable and agonized Mrs. Hastings inthe tonneau; but it was only Olivia's glance that he caught as itswept the prince. There was the faintest possible smile, and she wasgone; and St. George, his heart pounding, sat staring stupidly afterthat shining cloud of dust, frantically wondering whether she couldjust possibly have seen him. For this was no trick of theimagination, his galloping heart told him that. And whether or notYaque was a place, the world, the world was within his grasp,instinct with possibilities heavenly sweet. His eyes met Amory's inthe minute when Cassyrus, prime minister of Yaque, had it borne inupon him that this was no runaway machine, but the ordinary andpreferred pace of the daughter of their king; and while Cassyrus, atthe enormity of the conception, breathed out expostulations inseveral languages--some of them known to us only by means ofinscriptions on tombs--Amory spoke to St. George:

  "Who was the other girl?" he asked comprehensively.

  "What other girl?" St. George blankly murmured.

  And at this, Amory turned away with a look that could be made tomean whatever Amory meant.

  On went the imperial t
rain faring back to Med over the road latelystirred to shining dust by the wheels of Olivia's auto. Olivia'sauto. St. George was secretly saying over the words with a kind ofecstatic non-comprehension, when the prince spoke:

  "That," he said, "may explain why an American has been able togovern us. Chance crowned him, but he made himself king."

  Prince Tabnit hesitated and his eyes wandered--and those of St.George followed--to a far winding dot in that opal valley, a merespeck of silver with a prick of pink, fleeing in a cloud of sunnydust.

  "I do not know if you will know what I mean," said the prince, "buthers is the spirit, and the spirit of her father, the king, whichYaque had never known. It is the spirit which we of Phoenicia seemto have lost since the wealth of the world accumulated at her portsand she gave her trust to the hands of mariners and mercenaries, andlater bowed to the conqueror. It is the spirit that not all thecontinental races, I fancy, have for endowment, but yours possessesin rich measure. For this we would exchange half that we haveachieved."

  St. George nodded, glowing.

  "It is a great tribute, your Highness," he said simply, and in hisheart he laid it at Olivia's feet.

  Thereafter, in the long ride to Melita, during luncheon upon a highwhite terrace overlooking the sailless sea, and in the hours on theunforgetable roads of the islands, St. George, while incommunicablemarvels revealed themselves linked with incommunicable beauty, satin the prince's motor, his eyes searching the horizon for thatfleeing speck of silver and pink. It did not appear again. And whenthe train of the prince rolled into the yard of the Palace of theLitany it trembled upon St. George's lips to ask whether theformalities of the court would permit him that day to scale theskies and call upon the royal household.

  "For whatever he says, I've got to do," thought St. George, "but nomatter what he says, I shall go. Doesn't Amory realize that we'vebeen more than twelve hours on this island, and that nothing hasbeen done?"

  And then as they crossed the grassy court in the delicate hush ofthe merging light--the nameless radiance already penetrating thedusk--the prince spoke smoothly, as if his words bore no importdeeper than his smile:

  "You are come," he said courteously, "in time for one of theceremonies of our regime most important--to me. You will, I hope, dohonour to the occasion by your presence. This evening, in the Hallof Kings in the Palace of the Litany, will occur the ceremony of mybetrothal."

  "Your betrothal, your Highness?" repeated St. George uncertainly.

  "You will be attended by an escort," the prince continued, "andBalator, the commander of the guard, will receive you in the hall.May the gods permit the possible."

  He swept through the portico before them, and they followed dumbly.

  The betrothal of the prince.

  St. George heard, and his eager hope went down in foreboding. Heturned, hardly daring to read his own dread in the eyes of Amory.

  Amory, as St. George had said, was delicious, especially his drawl;but there were times--now, for example, when all that the eyes ofAmory expressed was what his lips framed, _sotto-voce_:

  "An American heiress, betrothed to the prince of a cannibal island!Wouldn't Chillingworth turn in his grave at his desk?"