"I was jesting, Hugh, just to see what you would say. The flag shall go up. You--you are the master, as you should be, Hugh." "You have as much right as I," he protested. "Then I'll be an American," she cried. "We'll raise our flag." "But you are not an American." "Granting that I was the first to see the island, was I not under protection of an American? I have been under American protection ever since. What has Great Britain to do with the situation? I demand the protection of the Stars and Stripes. Will you deny me?" Her eyes were sparkling eagerly. "Could the British have landed had it not been for the American?" "You really don't care?" "This is our flag, Hugh," she said seriously. "It will make me unhappy if you continue to take my jest as an earnest. We made it and I shall be proud to have it wave over me." A few hours later the Stars and Stripes floated high over a new island of the sea, far from the land of its birth. "How good and grand it looks," she cried as they saw it straighten to the breeze. "After all, it may be waving over its own, Hugh. The United States bought several thousands of islands in this section of the world, I've heard," she added, with a touch of irony. "It's the flag I love," he cried. "May God let me kiss once more the soil she calls home. Dear America!" From that day he never looked at the dancing, wriggling stripes without a surge of emotion. Its every flaunt seemed to beckon brave worshippers from far across the sea to the forlorn island on which it was patiently waving. An uneventful week passed. A Nedrite who had escaped from the Island of Oolooz brought word to King Pootoo that the enemy was completing preparation for a stupendous assault, but a close watch on the sea failed to reveal signs of the approach. Ridgeway and his eager followers were fully prepared for the assault. The prospect was now assuming the appearance of a European war cloud--all talk and no fight. But as King Pootoo insisted in vague earnestness that the informer was trustworthy, precautionary measures were not relaxed at any time. Hugh was now the possessor of a heavy sword made of the metallic-like wood. It had two edges and resembled an old-fashioned broadsword. "I feel like a Saumeri," he announced. When he found that fairly sharp blades could be wrought from this timber, he had knives and hatchets made for private use, his own trusty pocket knife being glorified by promotion. He whetted the blade to the keenest possible edge and used it as a razor. Tennys compelled him to seek a secluded spot for his, weekly shave, decreeing that the morals of the natives should not be ruined in their infancy by an opportunity to acquire first-class, fully developed American profanity.