, and why fire them among
his own wayleals? Another and another shell exploded among the
wayleals around us, and finally a regular tornado of them exploded all
around the _Polar King_, putting the enemy completely to flight.

As soon as the air was cleared around us, I saw to my intense
astonishment two friendly vessels, one of which bore the flag of the
United States and the other the flag of England, firing shells at the
enemy. I then knew the cause of our deliverance, and shouted for joy.
My men--all that were alive--rose and cheered our comrades from the
outer world! The excitement was overpowering! We could only, amid
tears of joy, salute them and signal them to keep up the fight. We
were saved!

A well-aimed shot from the Englishman sank still another vessel. This
fresh disaster received from the strangers seemed to completely
unnerve the enemy, for, strange to say, every ship afloat struck its
colors in surrender! It was well that the rear-admiral did so, for it
would have been only a question of time until his whole fleet would
have been destroyed.

The fletyemings retreated to their ships, and in a short time the
gold-plated ship of Rear-Admiral Gerolio, under the flag of truce,
came alongside our vessel. The rear-admiral and his staff came on
board, and delivered up his sword in token of surrender.

"You surrender to me as admiral of Her Majesty Lyone, Queen of
Atvatabar?" I said.

"I do," said the rear-admiral, "and am willing to devote my services
to the cause of her majesty."

"Will your fletyemings as well as yourself swear allegiance to Queen
Lyone and her cause?"

"We swear it!" yelled the fletyemings of the rear-admiral's ship, and,
at a signal from their leader, the flag of the new queen took the
place of the flag of his deposed majesty, King Aldemegry Bhoolmakar.

In a moment the entire fleet exhibited the flag of her holiness as the
symbol of their new allegiance. This was a gratifying victory, as it
procured for our cause more than sixty fully manned vessels of war and
twenty-five thousand fletyemings.

Lyone was mistress of the seas!

"How came you to surrender at this juncture?" I inquired of the
rear-admiral.

"Well, sir," he replied, "we have already lost more men and ships than
if we had been engaged with an enemy similarly armed and having as
many vessels as ourselves, and when the strange vessels came to your
assistance we saw it was useless to prolong the fight. We saw that
w