self; there, that is my secret!
It wants nothing, nothing from outside at all; and the people want
nothing either. They have great high plateaux where they can live cool;
and they have all the brains and the blood that they want to make
themselves a great nation. I have drilled them; ah, but not German
fashion, no! They are much too splendid for that. Every man is an army
to himself. They do not fear, for in their religion it is forbidden
them. But if you can think of Bersaglieri--which are the best troops in
Europe--able to climb like monkeys, to swim like fish, to go along the
ground like snakes, and to get all by different ways to the same place
in the dark with their eyes shut, though they have never been there
before--for that is how it seems--well, that is what my army is going to
be like. I have ten thousand of them drilled already; in a year I shall
have them armed; and I tell you that at six hundred miles from the
nearest coast nobody will be able to beat them."

"No, perhaps not with armies," said Charlotte; "but what about
civilization itself--all the evil part of it, I mean? How are you going
to keep that out?"

"Civilization will find us a bad bargain," said the Prince, "we shall
not trade: that is to be our law. I have told them how dreadful
civilization has become, and they are afraid of it; they will not touch
it with a pair of tongs. Traders may come to us; they shall get nothing,
and we shall get nothing from them. Only the King, with those that he
has for his Council, shall choose what is to bring in from outside; and
that will not be for trade at all.

"Well, now you know! And it is to be Queen of that country, but never to
wear any crown, that I ask if you are going to marry me?"

"It would be rather a big adventure, would it not?" said Charlotte.

"Of course! I thought that is what you like."

"Yes, so it is. But what about papa? I don't know what he would say if
he knew."

"Do you always tell him what you do, beforehand, to see if he shall
approve?"

"I've not done lately," said Charlotte. And then she saw that a suitable
moment for her own confession had arrived. She had very small hope of
shocking him now; but she did her best.

"Do you know that I have been in prison?" she said.

"No. Who was it that put you there--your papa?"

"I put myself."

"Did you get the keys?"

"I made them arrest me."

"How?"

"I took a policeman's helmet from him, and ran away with it. At least
th