An uneventful week passed.  A Nedrite who had escaped from the Island of Oolooz brought word to King Pootoo that the enemy was completing preparation for a stupendous assault, but a close watch on the sea failed to reveal signs of the approach.  Ridgeway and his eager followers were fully prepared for the assault.  The prospect was now assuming the appearance of a European war cloud—­all talk and no fight.  But as King Pootoo insisted in vague earnestness that the informer was trustworthy, precautionary measures were not relaxed at any time.  Hugh was now the possessor of a heavy sword made of the metallic-like wood.  It had two edges and resembled an old-fashioned broadsword.

“I feel like a Saumeri,” he announced.

When he found that fairly sharp blades could be wrought from this timber, he had knives and hatchets made for private use, his own trusty pocket knife being glorified by promotion.  He whetted the blade to the keenest possible edge and used it as a razor.  Tennys compelled him to seek a secluded spot for his, weekly shave, decreeing that the morals of the natives should not be ruined in their infancy by an opportunity to acquire first-class, fully developed American profanity.

Many of their evenings, delightfully cool in contrast with the intense heat of the day, were spent on the river.  The largest canoe of the village was fitted out with a broad, comfortable seat in the stern, upon which it was possible to recline lazily while several strong-armed natives paddled the craft through the shimmering, moonlit waters above the rapids.

One evening, a month after the raising of the flag, they came from the river, the night having been the most perfect they had seen, dark, sombre, picturesque.  The moon was hidden behind the banks of clouds, which foretold the coming of rain, yet there was a soft, exquisite glow on land and water, as if blue-black tints were being cast from aloft by some mysterious, experimenting artist among the gods.  It had been a quiet, dreamy hour for both.  As they walked slowly across the little plain, followed by the oarsmen, they became cognizant of an extraordinary commotion in the village.  Pootoo and a dozen men came running toward them excitedly.

“What’s up, I wonder?” cried Hugh.

“It is the enemy.  I know they have been sighted,” she exclaimed breathlessly.

And she was right.  Just before sunset the guard at the top of the gatepost had sighted the canoes of the invaders, far to the north.  According to the king, to whom the flying messenger had come, there were myriads of canoes and they were headed for a part of the beach about three leagues north of the village.  It was the best place for landing along the entire coast and was, besides, the point nearest the home of the coming foe.  It was evident that the enemy had miscalculated.  They came within eye range of the island before darkness set in.  A half an hour later and it would have been impossible to discern the boats in the gloom.  By merest chance their arrival was betrayed.