s sat erect.

"Yaque!" she exclaimed. "That was the name of the place where your
father was, Olivia. I know I remembered it because it wasn't like
the man What's-his-name in _As You Like It_, and because it didn't
begin with a J."

"The island is my home," Prince Tabnit continued, "and now, for the
first time, I find myself absent from it. I have come a long
journey. It is many miles to that little land in the eastern seas,
that exquisite bit of the world, as yet unknown to any save the
island-men. We have guarded its existence, but I have no fear to
tell you, for no mariner, unaided by an islander, could steer a
course to its coasts. And I can tell you little about the island for
reasons which, if you will forgive me, you would hardly understand.
I must tell you something of it, however, that you may know the
remarkable conditions which led to the introduction of Mr. Holland
to Yaque.

"The island of Yaque," continued the prince, "or Arqua, as the name
was written by the ancient Phoenicians, has been ruled by hereditary
monarchs since 1050 B.C., when it was settled."

"What date did I understand you to say, sir?" demanded Mr. Augustus
Frothingham.

The prince smiled faintly.

"I am well aware," he said, "that to the western mind--indeed, to
any modern mind save our own--I shall seem to be speaking in
mockery. None the less, what I am saying is exact. It is believed
that the enterprises of the Phoenicians in the early ages took them
but a short distance, if at all, beyond the confines of the
Mediterranean. It is merely known that, in the period of which I
speak, a more adventurous spirit began to be manifested, and the
Straits of Gibraltar were passed and settlements were made in
Iberia. But how far these adventurers actually penetrated has been
recorded only in those documents that are in the hands of my
people--descendants of the boldest of these mariners who pushed
their galleys out into the Atlantic. At this time the king of Tyre
was Abibaal, soon to be succeeded by his son Hiram, the friend, you
will remember, of King David,--"

Mr. Frothingham, who did not go to the theatre for fear of exciting
his imagination, uttered the soft non-explosion which should have
been speech.

"King Abibaal," continued the prince, "who maintained his court in
great pomp, had a younger and favourite son who bore his own name.
He was a wild youth of great daring, and upon the accession of
Hiram to the throne he left Tyre an