“Really,” said the King of the Under Folk, “I think it is not at all a bad idea—but in confidence, and between Monarchs, I may tell you, sir, that I suspect my mind is not what it was. You, sir, seem to possess a truly royal grasp of your subject. My mind is so imperfect that I dare not consult it. But my heart—”
“Your heart says Yes,” said the Queen. “So does mine. But our troops are besieging your city,” she said, “they will say that in asking for peace you were paying the tribute of the vanquished.”
“My people will not think this of me,” said the King of Merland, “nor would your people think it of you. Let us join hands in peace and the love of royal brethren.”
“What a dreadful noise they are making outside,” said the King, and indeed the noise of shouting and singing was now to be heard on every side of the Palace.
“If there was a balcony now where we could show ourselves,” suggested the King of Merland.
“The very thing,” said the Queen, catching up her pet Fido-which-was-Cathay in her arms and leading the way to the great curtained arch at the end of the hall. She drew back the swinging, sweeping hangings of woven seaweed and stepped forth on the balcony—the two Kings close behind her. But she stopped short and staggered back a little, so that her husband had to put an arm about her to support her, when her first glance showed her that the people who were shouting outside the Palace were not, as she had supposed, Under Folk in some unexpected though welcome transport of loyal enthusiasm, but ranks on ranks of the enemy, the hated Mer Folk, all splendid and menacing in the pomp and circumstance of glorious war.
“It is the enemy!” gasped the Queen.
“It is my people,” said the Mer King. “It is a beautiful thing in you, dear Queen, that you agreed to peace, without terms, while you thought you were victorious, and not because the legions of the Mer Folk were thundering at your gates. May I speak for us?”
They signed assent. And the Mer King stepped forward full into view of the crowd in the street below.
“My people,” he said in a voice loud, yet soft, and very, very beautiful. And at the words the Mer Folk below looked up and recognized their long-lost King, and a shout went up that you could have heard a mile away.