and! That is what makes a nation!"

When King Rupert reached the platform by the Flagstaff, the Royal
Standard of the Blue Mountains was hauled up under it. Rupert stood up
and raised his hand. In a second a cannon beside him was fired; then,
quick as thought, others were fired in sequence, as though by one
prolonged lightning-flash. The roar was incessant, but getting less in
detonating sound as the distance and the hills subdued it. But in the
general silence which prevailed round us we could hear the sound as
though passing in a distant circle, till finally the line which had gone
northward came back by the south, stopping at the last gun to south'ard
of the Flagstaff.

"What was that wonderful circle?" asked the King of the Lord High
Admiral.

"That, Your Majesty, is the line of the frontier of the Blue Mountains.
Rupert has ten thousand cannon in line."

"And who fires them? I thought all the army must be here."

"The women, Your Majesty. They are on frontier duty to-day, so that the
men can come here."

Just at that moment one of the Crown Prince's Guards brought to the side
of the King's aero something like a rubber ball on the end of a string.
The Queen held it out to the baby in her arms, who grabbed at it. The
guard drew back. Pressing that ball must have given some signal, for on
the instant a cannon, elevated to perpendicular, was fired. A shell went
straight up an enormous distance. The shell burst, and sent out both a
light so bright that it could be seen in the daylight, and a red smoke,
which might have been seen from the heights of the Calabrian Mountains
over in Italy.

As the shell burst, the King's aero seemed once more to spring from the
platform out into mid-air, dipped as before, and glided out over the Blue
Mouth with a rapidity which, to look at, took one's breath away.

As it came, followed by the aero of the Crown Prince's Guard and a group
of other aeros, the whole mountain-sides seemed to become alive. From
everywhere, right away up to the farthest visible mountain-tops, darted
aeroplanes, till a host of them were rushing with dreadful speed in the
wake of the King. The King turned to Queen Teuta, and evidently said
something, for she beckoned to the Captain of the Crown Prince's Guard,
who was steering the plane. He swerved away to the right, and instead of
following above the open track between the lines of warships, went high
over the outer line. One of those on bo