palace were
readied his attention was challenged and held, for though mere
marvels may become the air one breathes, beauty will never cease
to amaze, and the vista revealed was of almost disconcerting
beauty.

Avenues of brightness, arches of green, glimpses of airy columns, of
boundless lawns set with high, pyramidal shrines, great places of
quiet and straight line, alleys whose shadow taught the necessity of
mystery, the sound of water--the pure, positive element of it
all--and everywhere, above, below and far, that delicate, labyrinth
light, diffused from no visible source. It was as if some strange
compound had changed the character of the dark itself, transmuting
it to a subtle essence more exquisite than light, inhabiting it with
wonders. And high above their heads where this translucence seemed
to mix with the upper air and to fuse with moonbeams, sprang almost
joyously the pale domes and cornices of the palace, sending out
floating streamers and pennons of colours nameless and unknown.

"Jupiter," said the human Amory in awe, "what a picture for the
first page of the supplement."

St. George hardly heard him. The picture held so perfectly the
elusive charm of the Question--the Question which profoundly
underlies all things. It was like a triumphant burst of music which
yet ends on a high note, with imperfect close, hinting passionately
at some triumph still loftier.

From either side of the wall of the palace yard came glittering a
detachment of the Royal Golden Guard, clad in uniforms of unrelieved
cloth-of-gold. These halted, saluted, wheeled, and between their
shining ranks St. George and Amory footed quietly on, followed by
Rollo carrying the yellow oil-skins. To St. George there was relief
in the motion, relief in the vastness, and almost a boy's delight in
the pastime of living the hour.

Yet Royal Golden Guard, majestic avenues, and towered palace with
its strange banners floating in strange light, held for him but one
reality. And when they had mounted the steps of the mighty entrance,
and the sound of unrecognized music reached him--a very myth of
music, elusive, vagrant, fugued--and the palace doors swung open to
receive them, he could have shouted aloud on the brilliant
threshold:

"He says she is here in Yaque."

CHAPTER IX

THE LADY OF KINGDOMS

So there were St. George and Amory presently domiciled in a prince's
palace such as Asia and Europe have forgotten, as by and by they