Poor child! Tell Sir Karl what you wish him to do."

Yolanda did so, and then read the missive. I did not know the English
language perfectly, but Yolanda, who spoke it as if it were her mother
tongue, translated as she read. I had always considered the island
language harsh till I heard Yolanda speak it. Even the hissing "th" was
music on her lips. Had I been a young man I would doubtless have made a
fool of myself for the sake of this beautiful child-woman. When she had
finished reading the missive, she left her chair and came to my side.
She bent over my shoulder, holding the parchment before me.

"What I want to do, but can't--what I want you to do is so small and
simple a matter that it is almost amusing. I grow angry when I think
that I cannot do so little a thing to help myself; but you see, Sir
Karl, I tremble and my hand shakes to that extent I fear to mar the
page. I simply want to make the letter 't' on this parchment and I
can't. Will you do it for me?"

"Ay, gladly," I responded, "but where and why?" Then she pointed out to
me the word "nov" in the manuscript and said:--

"A letter 't,' if deftly done, will make 'not' instead of 'nov.' Do you
understand, Sir Karl?"

I sprang to my feet as if I had been touched by a sword-point. The
thought was so ingenious, the thing itself was so small and the result
was so tremendous that I stood in wonder before the daring girl who had
conceived it. I made no answer. I placed the parchment on the table,
unceremoniously reached in front of the duchess for the quill, and in
less time than one can count three I made a tiny ink mark not the
sixteenth part of an inch long that changed the destinies of nations for
all time to come.

I placed the quill on the table and turned to Yolanda, just in time to
catch her as she was about to fall. I was frightened at the sight of her
pale face and cried out:--

"Yolanda! Yolanda!"

Margaret quickly brought a small goblet of wine, and I held the princess
while I opened her lips and poured a portion of the drink into her
mouth. I had in my life seen, without a tremor, hundreds of men killed,
but I had never seen a woman faint, and the sight almost unmanned me.

Stimulated by the wine Yolanda soon revived; and when she opened her
eyes and smiled up into my face, I was so joyful that I fell to kissing
her hands and could utter no word save "Yolanda, Yolanda." She did not
at once rise from my arms, but lay there smiling into my fac