“The lives of a dozen women,” said the Campta, still with that covert irony or sarcasm in his tone, “would seem of less moment than threats and actual violence offered to the ruler of our largest and wealthiest dominion.  The excuse which Endo Zampta must accept” (with a slight but perceptible emphasis on the imperative) “is the utter difference between our laws and ideas and your own.”

The Regent, at this speech from his Sovereign, rose and made the usual gesture of assent, inclining his head and lifting his left hand to his mouth.  But the look on his face as he turned it on me, thus partly concealing it from the campta, boded no good should I ever fall into his power.  The Prince then desired me to give an account of the motives which had induced my voyage and the adventures I had encountered.  In reply, I gave him, as briefly and clearly as I could, a summary of all that is recorded in the earlier part of this narrative, carefully forbearing to afford any explanation of the manner in which the apergic force was generated.  This omission the Prince noticed at once with remarkable quickness.

“You do not choose,” he said, “to tell us your secret, and of course it is your property.  Hereafter, however, I shall hope to purchase it from you.”

“Prince,” I answered, “if one of your subjects-found himself in the power of a race capable of conquering this world and destroying its inhabitants, would you forgive him if he furnished them with the means of reaching you?”

“I think,” he replied, “my forgiveness would be of little consequence in that case.  But go on with your story.”

I finished my narration among looks of surprise and incredulity from no inconsiderable part of the audience, which, however, I noticed the less because the Prince himself listened with profound interest; putting in now and then a question which indicated his perfect comprehension of my account, of the conditions of such a journey and of the means I had employed to meet them.

“Before you were admitted,” he said, “Endo Zampta had read to us his report upon your vessel and her machinery, an account which in every respect consists with and supports the truth of your relation.  Indeed, were your story untrue, you have run a greater risk in telling it here than in the most daring adventure I have ever known or imagined.  The Court is dismissed.  Reclamomorta will please me by remaining with me for the present.”

When the assembly dispersed, I followed their Autocrat at his desire into his private apartments, where, resting among a pile of cushions and motioning me to take a place in immediate proximity to himself, he continued the conversation in a tone and manner so exactly the same as that he had employed in public as to show that the latter was not assumed for purposes of monarchical stage-play, but was the natural expression of his own character as developed under the influence of unlimited and uncontradicted power.  He only exchanged, for unaffected interest and implied confidence, the tone of ironical doubt by which he had rendered it out of the question for his courtiers to charge him with a belief in that which public opinion might pronounce impossible, while making it apparent to me that he regarded the bigotry of scepticism with scarcely veiled contempt.