sions of state. They were cooler, more
rational--particularly becoming--and less troublesome than skirts, and
their advent created great rejoicing among the natives, who, prior to
the arrival of their white leaders, had worn little more than nothing
and yet had been quite fashionable.

Tennys was secretly rehearsing the marriage ceremony in the privacy of
her chamber, prompted and praised by her faithful handmaidens. To her,
this startling wedding meant but one thing: the resignation of all
intent to leave the island. The day she and Hugh Ridgeway were united
according to the custom sacred to these people, their fate was to be
sealed forever. It was to bind them irrevocably to Nedra, closing
forever to them the chance of returning to the civilization they had
known and were relinquishing.

Ridgeway daily inventoried his rapidly increasing stock of war
implements, proud of the prowess that had made him a war-god. He soberly
prohibited the construction of a great boat which might have carried him
and his fair companion back to the old world.

"If we are rescued before the wedding, dear, all well and good; but if
not, then we want no boat, either of our own or other construction, to
carry us away. Our wedding day will make us citizens of Ridgehunt until
death ends the regime. Our children may depart, but we are the Izors of
Nedra to the last hour of life."

"Yes," she said simply.

The fortnight immediately prior to the day set for the wedding was an
exciting one for the bride and groom-to-be. Celebration of the great
event was already under way by the natives. Great feasts were planned
and executed; war dances and riots of worship took place, growing in
fervor and splendor as the day approached; preparations never flagged
but went on as if the future existence of the whole world depended
entirely upon the outcome of this great ceremony.

"Yesterday it was a week, now it is but six days," said Hugh early one
morning as they set forth to watch their adorers at work on the great
ceremonial temple with its "wedding ring." The new temple was a huge
affair, large enough to accommodate the entire populace.

"To-morrow it will be but five days," she said; "but how long the days
are growing." They sat beside the spring on the hillside and musingly
surveyed the busy architects on the plain below.

"How are the rehearsals progressing?" he asked.

"Excellently, but I am far from being a perfect savage. It doesn't seem
poss