in company with Emilia, and we loved.

"I was a fool. Yet I cannot tax myself that I played false to duty,
though by helping to crown her father I was destroying my own hopes,
since as heiress to his throne Emilia must be far removed from me.
We scarcely thought of this, but lived in our love, we two.
So the winter passed and the spring came and the _macchia_ burst into
flower.

"Prosper, you have never set eyes on the _macchia_, the glory of your
kingdom. But you shall behold it soon, lad, and smell it--for its
fragrance spreads around the island and far out to sea. It belts
Corsica with verdure and a million million flowers--cistus and myrtle
and broom and juniper; clematis and vetch and wild roses run mad.
Deeper than the tall forests behind it the _macchia_ will hide two
lovers, and under the open sky hedge off all the world but their
passion . . . In the _macchia_ we roamed together, day after day, and
forgot the world; forgot all but honour; for she, my lady, was a
child of sixteen, and as her knight I worshipped her. Ah, those
days! those scented days!

"But while we loved and Count Ugo wrote letters, the two Paolis were
doing; and by-and-by they played the strangest stroke in all
Corsica's history. That spring, at Aleria on the east coast, there
landed a man of whom the Corsican's had never heard. He came out of
nowhere with a single ship and less than a score of attendants--to be
precise, two officers, a priest, a secretary, a major-domo, an
under-steward, a cook, three Tunisian slaves, and six lackeys.
He had sailed from Algiers, with a brief rest in the port of Leghorn,
and he stepped ashore in Turkish dress, with scarlet-lined cloak,
turban, and scimetar. He called himself Theodore, a baron of
Westphalia, and he brought with him a ship-load of arms and
ammunition, a thousand zechins of Tunis, and letters from half a
dozen of the Great Powers promising assistance. Whether these were
genuine or not, I cannot tell you.

"Led by the two Paolis--this is no fairy tale, my friends--the
Corsicans welcomed and proclaimed him king, without even waiting for
despatches from Count Rivarola (who had negotiated) to inform them of
the terms agreed upon. They led him in triumph to Corte, and there,
in their ancient capital, crowned and anointed him. He gave laws,
issued edicts, struck money, distributed rewards. He put himself in
person at the head of the militia, and blocked up the Genoese in
their fortifie