"Blighters," she said. "Bloody blighters."

She was also a young woman of spirit and ready presence of mind. With
a swift jerk she dragged the slippery blade from the man's hands. She
pulled it towards her beyond the man's reach. Then with a sudden
vigorous thrust she drove the blade into the face of the nearest
sailor. It took him full in the mouth and knocked him backwards. He
picked himself up and spat out the broken fragments of some teeth.
Kalliope laughed joyously.

"Bloody blighters," she said, and for once the epithet was appropriate
enough.

The Queen felt that the situation was neither agreeable nor dignified.
It is very well, no doubt, for wild, half-barbarous girls like
Kalliope to engage in fights with German sailors; but for a civilized
American, a graduate of a university, such things are impossible. And
for a Queen! Can a queen brawl without hopeless loss of dignity? Her
immediate impulse was to appeal to the captain of the steamer, to
assert her right to enter the cave, to demand the immediate punishment
of the men who had stopped her.

She looked around. The captain was not on the bridge. He had been
there a few moments before. He had been there when the engine began to
work. He had disappeared. The Queen rowed back to the steamer. She
asked for the captain. The young officer whom she had seen in the
morning came to the side of the ship and told her that no one was
allowed to enter the cave. She asked to see the captain, refusing to
argue about her rights with a subordinate officer. She was told that
the captain was very much occupied and could not be disturbed. The
Queen, puzzled and angry, rowed back to the palace.

It was nearly luncheon-time when she landed. Smith met her with the
news that Mr. Donovan had been suffering severely with his heart all
the morning, that he would not join the Queen at luncheon, that,
further, he felt the need of absolute quiet and rest during the
afternoon, but hoped to be able to meet the German captain at dinner.

Donovan's balcony commanded a full view of the harbour. He had seen
Kalliope's struggle with the German sailor. He felt sure that his
daughter would tell him the whole story. He feared that she would want
him to take some vigorous action. Donovan made a point of encouraging
his heart in disordered action whenever demands of that kind were
likely to be made upon him. He argued that the trouble of the morning
would in all probability have died away befo