"As utterly as if the Fifth Dimension had received it," the prince gravely assured them. "The loss, as you may imagine, is a grievous one. The High Council immediately issued a proclamation that if the treasure be not restored by a certain date--now barely two weeks away--a heavy tax will be levied upon the people to make good, in the coin of the realm, this incalculable loss. Against this the people, though they are a people of peace, are murmurous."
"Indeed!" cried Mrs. Hastings. "Great loyalty it is that sets up the loss of their trumpery treasure over and above the loss of their king, my brother Otho! If," she shrilled indignantly, "we are not unwise to listen to this at all. What is it you think? What is it your people think?"
She raised her head until she had framed the prince in tortoise-shell. Mrs. Hastings never held her head quite still. It continually waved about a little, so that usually, even in peace, it intimated indignation; and when actual indignation set in, the jet on her bonnet tinkled and ticked like so many angry sparrows.
"Madame," said the prince, "there are those among his Majesty's subjects who would willingly lay down their lives for him. But he is a stranger to us--come of an alien race; and the double disappearance is a most tragic occurrence, which the burden of the tax has emphasized. To be frank, were his Majesty to reappear in Yaque without the treasure having been found--"
"Oh!" breathed Mrs. Hastings, "they would kill him!"
The prince shuddered and set his white teeth in his nether lip.
"The gods forbid," he said. "Such primeval punishment is as unknown among us as is war itself. How little you know my people; how pitifully your instincts have become--forgive me--corrupted by living in this barbarous age of yours, fumbling as you do at civilization. With us death is a sacred rite, the highest tribute and the last sacrifice to the Absolute. Our dying are carried to the Temple of the Worshipers of Distance, and are there consecrated. The limit of our punishment would be aerial exposure--"
"You mean?" cried St. George.
"I mean that in extreme cases we have, with due rite and ceremonial, given a victim to an airship, without ballast or rudder, and abundantly provisioned. Then with solemn ritual we have set him adrift--an offering to the great spirits of space--so that he may come to know. This," the prince paused in emotion, "this is the worst that could befall your father."
"How horrible!" cried Olivia. "Oh, how horrible."
"Oh," Mrs. Hastings moaned, "he was born to it. He was born to it. When he was six he tied kites to his arms and jumped out the window of the cupola and broke his collar bone--oh, Otho,--oh Heaven,--and I made him eat oatmeal gruel three times a day when he was getting well."