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 royal craft, draped in the Queen's favourite black hangings, and glittering with ornaments of gold, disappeared down the canal, and I at last was, comparatively speaking, alone with Hugh.

A boat was evidently waiting for us, for, prostrate on the ground, eight swarthy-looking men seemed to be waiting for us and to be requesting us to step into it, which we did. From the temple the stream of people had poured out, and stood in dense and picturesque masses on the tall steps, watching from a respectful distance every movement of the beloved of the gods.

"Perhaps you will tell me, old man, how all this is going to end," I remarked as soon as we, in our turn, were being rowed down the canal some half a dozen lengths behind the Queen's boat, and I felt that, at last, I was alone with Hugh.

He turned round to me, and the sunniest of smiles drove all the solemnity from his face.

"I don't know, old chap, and I don't care," he said with a merry laugh. "Tell me if this isn't the most glorious, the most beautiful thing mortal man can conceive?"

"It certainly is the most magnificent picture I have ever set eyes on, Girlie; but tell me what on earth you propose to do."

"Do? old chap!" he said, in his quiet, convinced way. "Why! rule over this gorgeous country, with you as my prime minister."

"I know your wants are modest, old man," I laughed, "but I should like to know how you propose to accomplish this laudable object, and whether the fund of deception from which you drew the wondrous history of your origin is inexhaustible, for you will need plenty of it."

"That was a capital idea of mine? now, wasn't it,