“No; none. It is a great sorrow to him to have no son to assist him in ruling the country. The young chief sitting on your right now helps him. He is a distant cousin of ours, and a great friend of mine.” I regarded my neighbour with more interest after that, for I wondered if he was Aryenis’s “might be” fairy prince. He was good-looking enough, anyway, with his manly features, light brown hair, and keen blue eyes. Then, seeing that he was busy trying to follow Wrexham’s rather halting Greek, she went on more boldly: “He is really _very_ nice, you know. Don’t you think he looks it?” “Yes, he does certainly. Is he a soldier, too?” “Yes; but these last two years he’s been helping my uncle instead of living in one of the border forts, which is where most of the soldiers begin. My father says it’s good for them, as they learn their work and keep out of mischief, as he calls it. I think Ziné and I and our friends are supposed to be the mischief!” “It is possible to imagine such a thing,” said I, looking down the table to where Ziné was smiling at some remark of Forsyth’s. He was evidently using his Greek to best advantage, and I felt sorry for John, stammering military commonplaces to Andros. I don’t know why I should have felt sorry, because Wrexham had never appeared to hanker much after feminine society during the years I had known him. But then they were generally years where the said society was limited to Flemish billet ladies or upon occasion to shrill-tongued Easterns with grievances. Still, after all, he was the original finder of Ziné’s picture and the cause of our meeting the lady. After dinner we sat in the great hall and some of the guests sang to us, rather pleasing music, very Western in type. Two of the women accompanied them on small stringed instruments not unlike guitars. The airs were for the most part familiar to the audience, judging by the way they took up the refrains. Of course, we could not follow the words, which were all in Sakae, but one that Andros sang was obviously some kind of fighting song. When the applause had died away, he went up to Aryenis and asked her to sing. She seemed doubtful either about singing or else as to what song she should choose, for they talked together quite a time. Eventually she got up and sang to his accompaniment--he was obviously a master of the instrument, which he took from one of the ladies. Aryenis’s voice--a full soprano--was worth going a long way to listen to, and she knew how to use it, for she filled the whole great hall, while the rustle and buzz of conversation died away and a still silence settled as she began. I have heard her sing this particular song often since, and, as the words pleased me when I learnt something of the language, I used to sing it myself after the manner of the unmusical male--namely, in my bath. I made a rough verse translation of it, which gives the meaning pretty accurately: A SONG OF LIFE