HOW I SET TO WORK TO UNDO A WRONG THAT HAD BEEN DONE IN THE KINGDOM OF THE MIKKAMENKIES, AND HOW BULGER HELPED.—QUEEN GALAXA’S CONFESSION.—I AM CREATED PRIME MINISTER AS LONG AS SHE LIVES.—WHAT TOOK PLACE IN THE THRONE ROOM.—MY SPEECH TO THE MEN OF GOGGLE LAND AFTER WHICH I SHOW THEM SOMETHING WORTH SEEING.—HOW I WAS PULLED IN TWO DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS AND WHAT CAME OF IT.
The first thing I did after the genuine princess Crystallina had left me was to seek out Doctor Nebulosus and learn from him the exact number of hours before the queen’s heart would run down.
As he had just been making an examination, he was able to tell the very minute: it was seventeen hours and thirteen minutes, rather a short time you must confess, dear friends, in which to accomplish such an important piece of business as I had in mind. I then made my way directly to the royal palace and demanded a private audience with the Lady of the Crystal Throne.
With the advice of Sir Amber O’Pake and Lord Cornucore she firmly but graciously refused to receive me, giving as an excuse that the excitement that would be sure to follow an interview with the “Man of Coal”—so the Mikkamenkies had named me—would shorten her life at least thirteen minutes.
But I was not to be put off in so unceremonious a manner. Sitting down, I seized a pen and wrote the following words upon a piece of glazed silk:—
“To Galaxa, Queen of the Mikkamenkies, Lady of the Crystal Throne.
“I, Lord Bulger, a Mikkamenkian Noble, Bearer of this, who was the first to discover that the real princess was not sitting on the steps of the Crystal Throne, demand an audience for my Master Baron Sebastian von Troomp, commonly known as ‘Little Baron Trump,’ and prompted by him I ask, What are thirteen minutes of thy life, O Queen Galaxa, to the long years of sorrow and disappointment in store for thy royal child?”
Taking this letter in his mouth, Bulger sprang away with long and rapid bounds. In a few minutes he was in the presence of the queen, for the guards had fallen back affrighted as they saw him draw near with his dark eyes flashing indignation. Raising himself upon his hind feet, he laid the letter in Galaxa’s hands. The moment she had read it she fell into a swoon, and all was stir and commotion in and round about the palace. I was hastily summoned and the audience chamber cleared of every attendant save Doctor Nebulosus, Sir Amber O’Pake, Lord Cornucore, Lord Bulger, and me.
“Send for the damozel Glow Stone,” commanded the queen, and when she had appeared, to the amazement of all saving Bulger and me, Galaxa bade her mount the steps of the Crystal Throne, then, having embraced her most tenderly, the queen spoke these words:—
“O faithful Councillors and wise friends from the upper world, this is the real princess Crystallina, whom I have for all these years wickedly and wrongfully kept from her high state and royal privileges. She was born with a speck in her heart, and I feared that it would be useless to ask my people to accept her as my successor.”