But alas! the American forgot a fact of the first importance:  the eyes of the father were as observant as those of his only child.  He saw the furtive glances at the curtains, and a slight rustling at his right hand told him that his beloved Ariel, with the curiosity of her sex, was playing the eavesdropper.

The indulgent father would have cared nothing for this, had he not discovered the extraordinary interest which one of his three callers manifested in his child.  In that moment, the distrust which he felt of the strange race was turned to violent hatred toward one of its members, because of his unpardonable insolence in daring to return the gaze with a smile.

The king suddenly leaned the javelin in his hand against the chair in which he was sitting, and partly rose from his seat as if about to descend from the throne.  Instead of doing so, he leaned slightly to one side, and, with a quick movement, seized one of the curtains and snatched it aside.

The act, which was like the flitting of a bird’s wing, caused Ariel, his daughter, to stand forth fully revealed!

If the white men had been dazzled by the amazing collection of diamonds on the brow of the king, it may be said that they were now blinded for the moment by the vision of loveliness which burst upon them, like the unexpected emergence of the sun from behind a dark cloud.

Before the princess could rally from her bewilderment, her father sharply commanded her to advance.  She knew that that affectionate parent could be stern and cruel as well as loving and affectionate, and with her eyes bent modestly on the floor she stepped forward and stood beside him.

Her hair, instead of being auburn like her parent’s, was as black as the raven’s wing.  It hung in luxuriant wavy masses below her waist, being gathered by a white clasp of burnished silver at the back of the neck, without which it would have enveloped all the upper part of her body in its fleecy veil.

Her gown of spotless white, composed of native cloth, as fine as satin, was without any ornament.  It was encircled at the waist by a golden girdle, falling in folds which concealed the rest of the figure, leaving only one Cinderella-like foot to twinkle from the front, like a jewel of rare beauty.

But no eye could fail to see that the slight girlish figure was of ravishing perfection.  The waist was slender, the partly revealed arms were as delicate as lilies, the tiny hands with their tapering fingers were like those of a fairy, while the countenance was one of the fairest that ever sun shone on.

The contour was such as Rubens delighted to place on canvas, and that Michael Angelo loved to carve from the snowy marble.  The Grecian nose, the small mouth, the white teeth, unstained like those of her countrymen and countrywomen, the wealth of hair, the lustrous, soulful eyes, the sea-shell-like tint of the cheeks, all these fell upon the startled vision of the explorers with such overpowering suddenness that for the moment they believed they were dreaming, or that some trick of magic revealed to them a picture which had no reality.