Ivanta—convinced, yet, as an honourable man, hampered by his own promises and undertakings—gladly jumped at Armeath’s suggestion of making artificial stones in such quantities as to render them as ’common as pieces of glass.’ Then, as Armeath had argued in his talk with Monck, nobody would bother himself to be the possessor of any of the ’gems,’ whether real or artificial. For none could tell the former from the latter when manufactured by Armeath’s process. The great difficulty now seemed to be to get a sufficient quantity of the necessary mineral; and to do this Ivanta would have to pay a visit to Saturn, that being the only place he knew of where it could be obtained. Meantime, Ivanta had decided to keep the cargo he had brought locked up; and to postpone its distribution until his return from his projected journey. Unfortunately, however, the mischief had already been done; the seeds of serious trouble had been sown, and were now growing to a far larger extent than King Ivanta knew of. King Agrando, in particular, was hatching a double plot, which, if it succeeded, was not only to gratify his newly-born craze for a big collection of jewels, but to restore him to his former position of independent ruler. Even, perhaps—who could tell?—it might raise him to the position now occupied by Ivanta himself! Into this conspiracy Zuanstroom had entered. That, at first sight, may appear a little strange; but the so-called Diamond King had newly awakened ambitions of his own. He saw that, as the owner of this great cargo of precious stones, he was in a position which was absolutely unique in the world of Mars. Upon Earth he had only been the Diamond King in a relative sense; here he was actually entitled to that name. But why should he stop there? Why should he not use his unique position to make himself a king in actual fact? Upon Earth, even with the help of all his diamonds, he could never aspire to such a height; but here it was different. Ivanta, he knew, would never fall in with such an idea; but Agrando, if approached in the right way, might—and he did. The result of the conferences between the two plotters may be summed up thus: Agrando had said, ’Let us use your diamonds to depose Ivanta and put me in his shoes, and give me the biggest share of the treasure; and I will then put you into a position similar to that I now myself occupy. You shall be king over a large tract of country, subject only to me as your overlord.’ And Zuanstroom’s ambition and unscrupulous nature had determined him to seal the compact and risk the consequences.