“The Stuart——­” began Evan, earnestly.

“Yes,” answered the old man, “that which has returned is Stuart and yet older than Stuart.  It is Capet and Plantagenet and Pendragon.  It is all that good old time of which proverbs tell, that golden reign of Saturn against which gods and men were rebels.  It is all that was ever lost by insolence and overwhelmed in rebellion.  It is your own forefather, MacIan with the broken sword, bleeding without hope at Culloden.  It is Charles refusing to answer the questions of the rebel court.  It is Mary of the magic face confronting the gloomy and grasping peers and the boorish moralities of Knox.  It is Richard, the last Plantagenet, giving his crown to Bolingbroke as to a common brigand.  It is Arthur, overwhelmed in Lyonesse by heathen armies and dying in the mist, doubtful if ever he shall return.”

“But now——­” said Evan, in a low voice.

“But now!” said the old man; “he has returned.”

“Is the war still raging?” asked MacIan.

“It rages like the pit itself beyond the sea whither I am taking you,” answered the other.  “But in England the king enjoys his own again.  The people are once more taught and ruled as is best; they are happy knights, happy squires, happy servants, happy serfs, if you will; but free at last of that load of vexation and lonely vanity which was called being a citizen.”

“Is England, indeed, so secure?” asked Evan.

“Look out and see,” said the guide.  “I fancy you have seen this place before.”

They were driving through the air towards one region of the sky where the hollow of night seemed darkest and which was quite without stars.  But against this black background there sprang up, picked out in glittering silver, a dome and a cross.  It seemed that it was really newly covered with silver, which in the strong moonlight was like white flame.  But, however, covered or painted, Evan had no difficult in knowing the place again.  He saw the great thoroughfare that sloped upward to the base of its huge pedestal of steps.  And he wondered whether the little shop was still by the side of it and whether its window had been mended.

As the flying ship swept round the dome he observed other alterations.  The dome had been redecorated so as to give it a more solemn and somewhat more ecclesiastical note; the ball was draped or destroyed, and round the gallery, under the cross, ran what looked like a ring of silver statues, like the little leaden images that stood round the hat of Louis XI.  Round the second gallery, at the base of the dome, ran a second rank of such images, and Evan thought there was another round the steps below.  When they came closer he saw that they were figures in complete armour of steel or silver, each with a naked sword, point upward; and then he saw one of the swords move.  These were not statues but an armed order of chivalry thrown in three circles round the cross.  MacIan drew in his breath, as children do at anything they think utterly beautiful.  For he could imagine nothing that so echoed his own visions of pontifical or chivalric art as this white dome sitting like a vast silver tiara over London, ringed with a triple crown of swords.