Romance Island

St. George listened, grasping at straws of comprehension, remembering how he had heard all this theorized about and smiled at; but most of all he was beset by a practical consideration.

"Then," he said suddenly, the question leaping to his lips almost against his will, "if you hold this key to all knowledge, how is it that the king--Mr. Holland--could get away from you, and the Hereditary Treasure be lost?"

The prince sighed profoundly.

"We have by no means," he said, "perfected our knowledge. We are at one with the absolute in knowledge--true. But the affairs of every day most frequently elude us. Not even the most advanced among us are perfect intuitionists. We have by no means reached that desirable and inevitable day when our minds shall flow together, without need of communication, without possibility of secret. We still suffer the disadvantage of a slight barrier of personality."

"And it is into one of these lapses," thought St. George irreverently, "that the king has disappeared." Aloud he asked curiously concerning a matter which was every moment becoming more incomprehensible.

"But how, your Highness," he said simply, "did your people ever consent to have an American for your king?"

Before the prince could reply there occurred a phenomenon that sent all thought of such insubstantialities as the secrets of the Fourth Dimension far in the background.

The prince's motor, closely followed by the others of the train, had reached a little eminence from which the island unrolled in fair patterns. Before them the smooth road unwound in varied light. At their left lay a still grove from whose depths was glimpsed a slim needle of a tower, rising, arrow-like, from the green. In the distance lay Med, with shining domes. The water of the lagoon gave brightness here and there among the hills. And as St. George and the prince looked over the prospect they saw, far down the avenue toward Med, a little, moving speck--a speck moving with a rapidity which neither the prince's motor nor any known motor of Yaque had ever before permitted itself.

In an instant the six members of the Royal Golden Guard, who upon beautiful, spirited horses rode in advance of the train of the prince, wheeled and thundered back, lifting glittering hands of warning. "Aside! Aside!" shrieked the main Golden Guard, "a motor is without control!"

Immediately there was confusion. At a touch the prince's car was drawn to the road's extreme edge, and the Golden Guards rode furiously back along the train, hailing the peaceful, slow-going machines into orderly retreat. They were all sufficiently amenable, for at sight of the alarming and unprecedented onrush of the growing speck that was bearing full down upon them, anxiety sat upon every face.