But before even the emperor could reach the girl, the bamboo screen was swept hurriedly aside, and into the archery lists came the anxious priest, Thomas the Nestorian. He had traced his missing charge even to the imperial palace, and now found her in the very presence of those he deemed her mortal enemies. Prostrate at the emperor’s feet, he told the young girl’s story, and then pleaded for her life, promising to keep her safe and secluded in his mission-home at Tung-Chow. The Emperor Tai laughed a mighty laugh, for the bold front of this only daughter of his former master and rival, suited his warlike humor. But he was a wise and clement monarch withal. “Nay, wise O-lo-pun,” he said. “Such rivals to our throne may not be at large, even though sheltered in the temples of the hung-mao.(1) The royal blood of the house of Sui(2) flows safely only within palace walls. Let the proper decree be registered, and let the gifts be exchanged; for to-morrow thy ward, the Princess Woo, becometh one of our most noble queens.” (1) The “light-haired ones”--an old Chinese term for the western Christians. (2) The name of the former dynasty. And so at fourteen, even as the records show, this strong-willed young girl of the Yellow River became one of the wives of the great Emperor Tai. She proved a very gracious and acceptable stepmother to young Prince Kaou, who, as the records also tell us, grew so fond of the girl queen that, within a year from the death of his great father, and when he himself had succeeded to the Yellow Throne, as Emperor Supreme, he recalled the Queen Woo from her retirement in the mission-house at Tung-Chow and made her one of his royal wives. Five years after, in the year 655, she was declared Empress, and during the reign of her lazy and indolent husband she was “the power behind the throne.” And when, in the year 683, Kaou-tsung died, she boldly assumed the direction of the government, and, ascending the throne, declared herself Woo How Tsih-tien--Woo the Empress Supreme and Sovereign Divine. History records that this Zenobia of China proved equal to the great task. She “governed the empire with discretion,” extended its borders, and was acknowledged as empress from the shores of the Pacific to the borders of Persia, of India, and of the Caspian Sea. Her reign was one of the longest and most successful in that period known in history as the Golden Age of China. Because of the relentless native prejudice against a successful woman, in a country where girl babies are ruthlessly drowned, as the quickest way of ridding the world of useless incumbrances, Chinese historians have endeavored to blacken her character and undervalue her services. But later scholars now see that she was a powerful and successful queen, who did great good to her native land, and strove to maintain its power and glory.