We had met and defeated the Mahars and the Sagoths. In short, we had
demonstrated our rights to empire, and very rapidly were we being
recognized and heralded abroad when my departure for the outer world
and Hooja's treachery had set us back.

But now I had returned. The work that fate had undone must be done
again, and though I must need smile at my imperial honors, I none the
less felt the weight of duty and obligation that rested upon my
shoulders.

Slowly the imperial navy progressed toward completion. She was a
wondrous craft, but I had my doubts about her. When I voiced them to
Perry, he reminded me gently that my people for many generations had
been mine-owners, not ship-builders, and consequently I couldn't be
expected to know much about the matter.

I was minded to inquire into his hereditary fitness to design
battleships; but inasmuch as I already knew that his father had been a
minister in a back-woods village far from the coast, I hesitated lest I
offend the dear old fellow.

He was immensely serious about his work, and I must admit that in so
far as appearances went he did extremely well with the meager tools and
assistance at his command. We had only two short axes and our
hunting-knives; yet with these we hewed trees, split them into planks,
surfaced and fitted them.

The "navy" was some forty feet in length by ten feet beam. Her sides
were quite straight and fully ten feet high--"for the purpose,"
explained Perry, "of adding dignity to her appearance and rendering it
less easy for an enemy to board her."

As a matter of fact, I knew that he had had in mind the safety of her
crew under javelin-fire--the lofty sides made an admirable shelter.
Inside she reminded me of nothing so much as a floating trench. There
was also some slight analogy to a huge coffin.

Her prow sloped sharply backward from the water-line--quite like a line
of battleship. Perry had designed her more for moral effect upon an
enemy, I think, than for any real harm she might inflict, and so those
parts which were to show were the most imposing.

Below the water-line she was practically non-existent. She should have
had considerable draft; but, as the enemy couldn't have seen it, Perry
decided to do away with it, and so made her flat-bottomed. It was this
that caused my doubts about her.

There was another little idiosyncrasy of design that escaped us both
until she was about ready to launch--there was no method of