that mad old Malakh--

"Father!" she cried appealingly, "don't you remember--don't you
know?"

King Otho, watching the prince, shook his head, smiling.

"At dawn," he said, "there are few of us to be found remaining still
at table with Socrates. I seem not to have been of that number."

"Olivia!" cried St. George suddenly.

She met his eyes for a moment, the eyes that had read her own, that
had given message for message, that had seen with her the glory of a
mystic morning willingly relinquished for a diviner dawn. Was she
not princess here in Yaque? She laid her hand upon her father's
hand; the crown that they had given her glittered as she turned
toward the multitude.

"My people," she said ringingly, "I believe that that man speaks the
truth. Shall the prince not answer to this charge before the High
Council now--here--before you all?"

At this King Otho did something nearly perceptible with his
eyebrows. "Perfect. Perfect. Quite perfect," he said below his
breath. The next instant the eyelids of the sovereign drooped
considerably less than one would have supposed possible. For from
every part of the great chamber, as if a storm long-pent had forced
the walls of the wind, there came in a thousand murmurs--soft,
tremulous, definitive--the answering voice to Olivia's question:

"Yes. Yes. Yes..."

CHAPTER XX

OUT OF THE HALL OF KINGS

In Prince Tabnit's face there was a curious change, as if one were
suddenly to see hieroglyphics upon a star where before there had
been only shining. But his calm and his magnificent way of authority
did not desert him, as so grotesque a star would still stand lonely
and high in the heavens. He spoke, and upon the multitude fell
instant silence, not the less absolute that it harboured foreboding.

"Whatever the people would say to me," said the prince simply, "I
will hear. My right hand rests in the hand of the people. In return
I decree allegiance to the law. Your princess stands before you,
crowned. This most fortunate return of his Majesty, the King, can
not set at naught the sacred oath which has just left her lips.
Henceforth, in council and in audience, her place shall be at his
Majesty's right hand, as was the place of that Princess Athalme,
daughter of King Kab, in the dynasty of the fall of Rome. Is it not,
therefore, but the more incumbent upon your princess to own her
allegiance to the law of the island by keeping her troth with
me--that troth witnesse