CHAPTER II
It was not long before, as the Good Old Man had foretold, evil days came upon the kingdom of Sunne.
The King's brother, who until this time had apparently been very well satisfied to live peacefully in his castle and mind his own affairs, which, were quite important enough to suit almost anyone, now began to stir up trouble in the kingdom.
He made speeches, traveling from place to place, and told the nobles how foolish they were to be satisfied to stay in the Island of Sunne and work so hard collecting rents when they might go to war and win some of the other islands and take possession of all the silver and gold, fine castles and estates there.
After a while he made some of them very dissatisfied with their lot, and the King had to threaten to put him in prison if he did not stop it. I do not know how it would have ended if a dreadful accident had not occurred which threw the whole kingdom into the deepest gloom.
The King and Queen with some of the Court were one day out for a sail on the bay, when a sudden squall arose which upset the boat, and all were drowned.
The people of Sunne were greatly grieved and very much alarmed as well, for the Prince was still quite young, and could not be expected to know much about ruling a country. They, however, did not have very much to say in the matter, as the dissatisfied uncle at once proposed to reign as King Regent until Daimur was eighteen years of age.
As most of the best statesmen and all the King's close advisers had been drowned, there was nobody in particular to disagree with him, and he immediately took possession of the palace and began ordering everyone around.
Soon people hated him, and he made the taxes so high that it took nearly all the money they could earn to pay them. This was to keep up an immense army which he had formed with the intention of making war against the other islands as soon as he had built a large fleet.
When Daimur was eighteen all the people of the kingdom demanded that he should be crowned king.
Daimur wanted to be crowned at once too, so that he could put back all the good laws his father had made, and save his country from going to war, but his uncle begged him to wait for a couple of months.
One night shortly after his birthday, Daimur had gone to his apartment and was sitting at his window thinking sadly of his troubled kingdom, when suddenly his door was opened and before he could say a word a gag was thrust into his mouth, his hands and feet were tied, and he was carried quickly downstairs, out of doors and down the garden path to the sea, where he was dumped into a boat that was anchored at the little wharf there. The night was very dark, and Daimur could not see because they had thrown a cloak over him and fastened it over his head, but he could tell that it was a small boat by the way it rocked when they moved about. The men ran up a couple of sails and pushed off to sea. The boat raced swiftly through the waves, but Daimur thought the journey would never end as he lay bound in the bow of the boat, and half smothered by the cloak. They sailed all night. The sun came up and it was a very warm day, but still they kept on, and it was not until the middle of the afternoon that they came at last to land and ran onto a sandy beach. Here the men pulled the poor Prince out of the boat more dead than alive, set him free, and putting off a large jug of fresh water and a big bag of biscuits, sailed away again and left him.
In vain Daimur cried after them to return, not to leave him there alone. They paid not the slightest attention.
After watching them for some time he saw in the distance a large sailing barge running towards the small boat, which he recognized as his uncle's, so how he felt certain that his uncle had caused him to be left upon the Island of Despair in order to take possession of the Kingdom of Sunne.