d took command of a galley of
adventuresome spirits, who were among the first to pass the
straits and gain the open sea. The story of their wild voyage I
need not detail; it is enough to say that their trireme was
wrecked upon the coast of Yaque; and Abibaal and those who joined
him--among them many members of the court circle and even of the
royal family--settled and developed the island. And there the race
has remained without taint of admixture, down to the present day.
Of what was wrought on the island I can tell you little, though
the time will come when the eyes of the whole world will be
turned upon Yaque as the forerunner of mighty things. Ruled over
by the descendants of Abibaal, the islanders have dwelt in peace
and plenty for nearly three thousand years--until, in fact, less
than a year ago. Then the line thus traceable to King Hiram
himself abruptly terminated with the death of King Chelbes,
without issue."

Again Mr. Frothingham attempted to speak, and again he collapsed
softly, without expression, according to his custom. As for St.
George, he was remembering how, when he first went to the paper, he
had invariably been sent to the anteroom to listen to the daily
tales of invention, oppression and projects for which a continual
procession of the more or less mentally deficient wished the
_Sentinel_ to stand sponsor. St. George remembered in particular one
young student who soberly claimed to have invented wireless
telegraphy and who molested the staff for months. Was this olive
prince, he wondered, going to prove himself worth only a half-column
on a back page, after all?

"I understand you to say," said St. George, with the weary
self-restraint of one who deals with lunatics, "that the line of
King Hiram, the friend of King David of Israel, became extinct less
than a year ago?"

The prince smiled.

"Do not conceal your incredulity," he said liberally, "for I
forgive it. You see, then," he went on serenely, "how in Yaque the
question of the succession became engrossing. The matter was not
merely one of ascendancy, for the Yaquians are singularly free from
ambition. But their pride in their island is boundless. They see in
her the advance guard of civilization, the peculiar people to whom
have come to be intrusted many of the secrets of being. For I should
tell you that my people live a life that is utterly beyond the ken
of all, save a few rare minds in each generation. My people live
what others dr