d it and was to be seen plainly at last in the sheltered water of
the harbour. She was a long low boat, narrow, sharply pointed bow and
stern. A turret rose amidships. The smooth rounded slope of her deck
was broken only by a hand rail which stretched fore and aft from the
turret. The Queen had seen no craft like her, but she knew what she
was, a submarine.

The Queen seized Kalliope by the arm and pointed to the boat. It was
impossible to talk up there on the cliff in the storm. The two girls
struggled to their feet. They started on their way back to the palace.
Hand in hand, running, tripping, buffeted, breathless, they reached
the bottom of the cliff.

The Queen and Kalliope were the first to see the submarine; but when
she rounded the corner of the reef and entered the harbour every one
on the island was aware of her arrival. From the houses of the village
men came out and stood on the beach staring at the strange craft which
moved across their bay. In the palace King Konrad Karl saw her and
knew at once what she was. The effect her arrival produced on him was
curious. Better than any one else on the island except perhaps Smith,
he understood the German war spirit and guessed what the coming of the
submarine might mean. Yet he seemed actually pleased to see her. He
hurried to find Gorman. All the nervous agitation which had set him
quarrelling with his Corinne disappeared. The effects of the horrible
dullness and intolerable boredom of the past three months dropped away
in an instant. The sirocco no longer afflicted him. He greeted Gorman
with smiles. He was once more the irrepressible, cheery, street arab
among kings, who had swindled the British public with his Vino
Regalis, who defied all conventional decencies in his relations with
Madame Ypsilante, who had failed to pay his bills in London and tried
to outwit the Emperor over the sale of Salissa.

"Gorman," he said, "my friend Gorman. Once more we are alive. Many
things happen. It is a hand of no trumps doubled and redoubled.
Gorman, I palpitate, I thrill. We arrive at the moment of destiny.
Behold destiny!"

Gorman, who was looking out of the window, saw the submarine, but did
not for the moment recognize destiny. He agreed with the King that her
arrival made a desirable break in the monotony that oppressed them.
But the situation did not strike him as equal in emotional value to a
redoubled hand at bridge. The best he hoped for was some fresh
company, a