ved through the ages, and described the recent attack as the most
virulent and determined that they had ever experienced, being nothing
less than a carefully elaborated and well-ordered plan for their
complete extermination. Then he touched upon the arrival of the two
young Englishmen in the country, spoke of the law prohibiting the
admission of strangers, and fully explained the reasons which had led to
an exception being made in their case, and congratulated himself and
everybody else upon the happy issue of that exception, going on to say
that but for the warlike knowledge and skill of the visitors, and the
superlative importance of the parts which they had played in planning
and carrying out the scheme of defence, that day of triumph and glory
for Izreel would never have dawned. And he wound up by saying that, in
acknowledgment and recognition of the enormously important and valuable
services which these young men had rendered to the nation, he and his
fellow Elders had felt it to be their duty to recommend the Queen to
confer upon both the honour and distinction accompanying the title of
Princes.

A roar of delighted approval greeted this peroration; and if perchance
there happened to be here and there a noble or two who regarded with
disapprobation the bestowal of this unique honour upon aliens, they were
too prudent to permit that disapprobation to be suspected, in view of
the apparently universal popularity of the act.

The Queen, acutely conscious of the fact that she contemplated a step,
the effect of the announcement of which it was utterly impossible to
foresee, and quick to recognise that the popularity of Grosvenor and
Dick would probably never be greater than it was at that moment,
determined to make the utmost of the opportunity; and, upon the occasion
of the public investiture of the newly created princes, electrified
everybody present by calmly announcing--in a manner which seemed to
suggest that she was doing something which she was certain would meet
with the full and unanimous approval of her people--that it was her
intention to espouse Prince Philip as soon as the necessary preparations
for the ceremony could be made!

The announcement was followed by silence so tense that, to make use of a
much hackneyed expression, one might have heard a pin drop, and it
lasted so long that the Queen grew white to the lips, and her eyes began
to glitter ominously. Was it possible that the nobles--who but for