Olivia was very pale.  She had hardly slept, night-long.  Alarm at the inexplicable disappearance of St. George at dinner-time the day before and at the discovery that old Malakh was nowhere about had, by morning, deepened to unreasoning fear among them all.  And then Olivia, knowing nothing of what had taken place in the room of the tombs, had resolved upon a desperate expedient, had bundled into an airship her almost prostrate aunt, Mr. Frothingham and his excited little daughter, and had borne down upon the Palace of the Litany two hours before noon.  Amory, frantic with apprehension, had stayed behind with Jarvo, certain that St. George could not have left the mountain.  But now that Olivia stood before the prince it required but a moment to convince her that Prince Tabnit really knew nothing of St. George’s whereabouts.  Indeed, since his gift of Phoenician wine, sealed three thousand years ago, and the immediate evanishment of the two Americans, his Highness had no longer vexed his thought with them, and he was genuinely amazed to know that (in a world which was an intaglio of his own designing) these two had actually spent yesterday at the king’s palace on Mount Khalak.  He perceived that he must give them more definite attention than his half-idle device of the wine—­intended as that had been as a mere hyperspatial practical joke, not in the least irreconcilable with his office of host.

“Mr. St. George came to Yaque to help me find my father,” Olivia was concluding earnestly, “and if anything has happened to him, Prince Tabnit, I alone am responsible.”

The prince reflected for a moment, his eyes fixed upon the hundred-branched candlestick.  Then: 

“Mr. St. George’s disappearance,” he said, “has prevented a still more unpleasant catastrophe.”

“Catastrophe!” repeated Mrs. Hastings, quite without tucking in her voice at the corners, “I have thought of no other word since I got to be royalty.”

“A world experience, a world experience, dear Madame,” contributed Mr. Frothingham, his hands laid trimly along his blue velvet lap.

“But that doesn’t make it any easier to bear, no matter what anybody says,” retorted the lady.

“Inasmuch,” pursued Prince Tabnit with infinite regret, “as these Americans have, as you say, assisted in the search for your father, the king, they have most unfortunately violated that ancient law which provides that no State or satrapy shall receive aid, whether of blood or of bond, from an alien.  The Royal House alone is exempt.”

“And the penalty,” demanded Olivia fearfully.  “Is there a penalty?  What is that, Prince Tabnit?”

The voice of the prince was never more mellow.

“Do not be alarmed, I beg,” he hastened his reassurance.  “Upon the return of Mr. St. George, he and his friend will simply be set adrift in a rudderless airship, an offering to the great idea of space.”

Mrs. Hastings swayed toward the prince in her chair of verd antique, and her voice seemed to become brittle in the air.