housand wild, blood-bespattered people, the
great hall echoed again and again. The faint light showed too plainly at
what terrible cost the victory had been won. Their clothes were torn,
their faces were blackened by powder, from their superficial wounds blood
was oozing, while the more serious consequences of sword-cuts and
gun-shots had been hastily bound by shreds of garments. Flushed by their
victory, they were a strange, forbidding-looking rabble. Yet they were
our partisans; a peaceful, law-abiding people who had been oppressed by a
tyrannical rule and long ripe for revolt, they had seized this
opportunity to break the power of the cruel-hearted woman who was
unworthy to hold sway upon that historic throne.

"Let us seek the Naya! She shall not escape! Let us avenge the deaths of
our fathers and children!" were the cries raised when they found the Hall
of Audience deserted. Apparently they had expected to find the Great
White Queen seated there, awaiting them, and their chagrin was intense at
finding her already a fugitive.

"She dare not face us!" they screamed. "All tyrants are cowards. Kill
her! Let us kill her!"

But Goliba, whom I was gratified to see present and unharmed, sprang upon
the dais, and waving his arms, cried:

"Rather let us first place our valiant young prince upon the Emerald
Throne. Let him be appointed our ruler; then let us seek to place the
Naya in captivity."

"No," they cried excitedly. "Kill her!"

"Give her alive to Zomara!" suggested one man near me, grimly. "Let her
taste the punishment to which she has consigned so many hundreds of our
relatives and friends."

Heedless of these shouts, Goliba, stretching forth his hand, led Omar,
whose torn clothes and perspiring face told how hard he had fought,
towards the wonderful throne of green gems, and seating him thereon,
cried:

"I, Goliba, on behalf of these, the people of our great kingdom, enthrone
thee and invest thee with the supreme power in place of thy mother, the
Naya."

Loud deafening cheers, long repeated, rose from the assembled multitude,
and the soldiers dying in the courts outside knew that the revolt of the
people had been successful; that right had won in this struggle against
might. Then, when the cries of adulation became fainter, and with
difficulty silence was restored, Omar rose, and raising his sword, upon
which blood was still wet, exclaimed in a loud, ringing voice:

"I, Omar, the last descendant of the