said the Queen. "We're going off to her."

Kalliope had already cast off the boat's mooring rope and sat ready at
the oars.

"Beg pardon, your Majesty," said Smith, "but it might be as well for
me to go off first. Foreign sailors are not always as polite as they
might be. Not knowing that your Majesty is Queen of the island they
might say things which were disrespectful."

The Queen would not listen to this suggestion.

"Come along with us if you like," she said, "but I'm not going to wait
till you come back."

Smith stepped into the boat and took his seat in the bow. Kalliope had
the oars. The Queen sat in the stern.

The men on the deck of the steamer were very busy. They were
overhauling and coiling down what looked like a long rubber hose. An
officer, a young man in a smart uniform, was directing the work. When
the boat was near the steamer, the officer hailed and asked in German
what boat it was. Kalliope was rowing vigorously. Before any answer
could be made to the hail the boat ran alongside the steamer.

The Queen had learned German at school, carefully and laboriously,
paying much attention to the vagaries of irregular verbs. She began to
think out a sentence in which to describe her boat, herself and her
servants. But Smith took it for granted that she knew no German.
Before her sentence had taken shape he answered the officer. The
young man leaned over the bulwark of the steamer and stared at the
Queen while Smith spoke. Then he went away. Smith explained to the
Queen what had happened.

"I asked him to call the captain, your Majesty. I told him that you
are the Queen of the island. I was speaking to him in German, your
Majesty."

The Queen knew that. She might be slow in framing a German sentence
when an unexpected demand for such a thing was made on her, but thanks
to the patience and diligence of a certain fat German governess, she
could understand the language fairly well. She had understood every
word that Smith said. He had not told the young officer that she was
Queen of the island. He had described her as the daughter of the rich
American who had bought Salissa from King Konrad Karl. She made no
attempt at the moment to understand why Smith said one thing in German
and offered her something slightly different as a translation; and she
did not question him on the point. She was content to leave him to
suppose that she knew no German at all.

The boat, which had run quickly alongside of the