appiness, but
alas!"----and he sighed heavily without finishing his sentence.

"Why speak so despondently?" I inquired, surprised. "As Naba of Mo all
things are possible."

"Alas! not everything," he said, with an air of melancholy.

"Well, tell me," I urged. "Why are you so downcast?"

"I--I have lost Liola," he answered hoarsely. "Truth to tell, Scarsmere,
I loved Goliba's daughter."

"She is absolutely beautiful," I admitted. "No man can deny that she is
handsome enough to share your royal throne."

"Indeed she was," he said with emotion, his chin upon his breast.

"Was!" I cried. "Why do you speak thus?"

"Because she is dead!" he answered huskily. "Ah! Scars, you don't know
how fondly I loved her ever since the first moment we met. I loved her
better than life; better than all this honour and pomp to which I have
succeeded. Yet she has been taken from me, and my life in future will be
devoid of that happiness I had contemplated. True I am Naba of Mo,
successor to the stool whereon a line of unconquered monarchs have sat
throughout a thousand years, yet all is an empty pleasure now that my
well-beloved is lost to me."

"Have you obtained definite news of her death?" I asked sympathetically.

"Yes. When we were captured in Goliba's house, she, too, was seized by
the soldiers. While held powerless I saw her struggling with her captors,
for they had somehow obtained knowledge of the part she had played in
our conspiracy against their queen. The Naya had, it appears, ordered her
guards to bring us all before her, dead or alive. With valiant courage
she resented the indignity of arrest, and as a consequence she was
brutally killed by those who held her prisoner."

"How have you ascertained this?" I asked, shocked at the news, for I
myself had admired Liola's extraordinary beauty.

"To-day I have had before me the three survivors of the guards who
captured us, and all relate the same story. They say that a young girl,
taken prisoner with us, while being dragged up the roadway towards the
palace was in danger of being released by the people, and one of their
comrades, remembering the Naya's orders that none of us were to escape,
in the _melee_ raised his sword and plunged it into her heart."

"The brute!" I cried. "Is the murderer among the survivors?"

"No. All three agree that the mob, witnessing his action, set upon him
and literally tore him limb from limb."

"A fate he certainly deserved," I said. "Bu