destruction would be the gravest mistake that
you could possibly make; for we, who are natives of the greatest
fighting nation that the world has ever known, can teach you much in the
art of war, your knowledge of which is of the slightest. Your weapons
are poor and inefficient, and you know nothing of strategy and
generalship; but we can instruct you in those important matters, and
also teach you how to make new and powerful weapons, by means of which
you will be able effectually to subjugate the nations which now threaten
you. Say, then, will you destroy us, and so involve yourselves in
irretrievable ruin? Or shall we teach you how to emerge victoriously
from the coming struggle with your enemies?"

There could be but one answer to such a question; the jealousy of the
nobles gave way to fear. They no longer clamoured for the death of the
Englishmen, but, on the contrary, were as willing as the rest that the
strangers should be afforded every opportunity to make good their boast,
and from that moment Dick and Grosvenor became virtually the Dictators
of the nation.

Their victory was perhaps the easier from the fact that during the six
months of their sojourn they had already accomplished much. The Queen,
for example, enlivened and encouraged by the intimate companionship of
her two fellow countrymen, had gradually thrown off the incubus of her
terror, and was now almost her former self again; while Grosvenor had
found congenial occupation in fitting the few craft upon the lake with
sails, and designing and building other craft of greatly improved model,
including half a dozen cutters of the racing-yacht type, which he
conceived would be exceedingly useful should the savages ever again
attempt, as they had done on several previous occasions, to attack the
island city. As for Dick, the densely populated city alone provided him
with more patients than he could conveniently deal with; and he had
effected many remarkable cures.

One of the first things that particularly attracted the attention of the
two friends immediately upon their arrival in Izreel was the inadequacy
of the weapons--a spear, or sheaf of spears, and a small round shield or
target--with which the people were armed; and this they now proceeded to
rectify by the general introduction of bows and arrows as an auxiliary
to the spear and shield. There was an abundance of suitable wood for
bows to be found in a forest on the inner slope of the mountain