One of the ant soldiers withdrew, and presently returned with Princess Lilla, who entered the audience chamber inquiringly.
In spite of his studied composure, Myles started forward. Here was his beloved wife, from whom he had been absent scarcely a moment since their marriage, until the cruel civil war had separated them. How he longed to rush to her side, and hold her in his love-starved arms and whisper comforting words into her antennae! But, with a great effort, he restrained himself. Yuri must not be permitted to see his emotion. So the earthman stood still, as his loyal wife swept into the room.
She was no longer the little girl whom Myles Cabot had married. Bearing a child, and the subsequent sorrows and horrors which had crowded upon her, had made her a woman since he had left her on the fatal morning many sangths ago, to fly to the Peace Day exercises which had turned out so fatally. A beautiful woman she was. Her sorrows had not marred her fair face, and she still outshone all the other women of her race, or of any race for that matter. Cabot noted with a pang that she was dressed, not in royal blue as became one who was in mourning, but rather in black, presumably by order of Yuri, in honor of the visiting queen from ant-land.
Her eyes sought those of the king, then followed his glance until they rested on her husband. For a moment she stood aghast, then rushed across the room and flung her arms around his neck.
“Myles! Myles!” she cried. “Is it really you? They told me you were dead. Then came the news that you had rejoined your troops and were leading them again to victory. The people believed and were glad, but Yuri told me that it was all a lie, concocted to win the throne away from him, and that your body lay burned to a crisp in the woods north of Lake Luno. Yet still I would not marry him, even for the sake of my country, while there yet was a chance that you lived. But what brings you here? And why are you handcuffed?”
“Doggo brings me here,” Cabot replied with a wan smile, “and I am handcuffed lest I wring the neck of the reigning monarch.”
“Which doubtless would give you great pleasure,” Yuri interposed.
“Very great pleasure, your majesty,” Cabot admitted with mock deference.
Yuri turned to Lilla with a devilish grin and spoke, “At last I have decided what steps to take for the welfare of my beloved country. The assembly will pass a law annulling your marriage on the ground that your husband is nothing but a lower animal. Then you shall have your choice of marriage to me as the price of Cabot’s life, or of life with me as my slave and Cabot’s death. Two sangths shall you have in which to decide. Meanwhile the woofuses shall guard your husband in the arena. I have spoken.”