My father lifted his glass. "To thee, Emilia, child and queen!" He drank, and, setting down his glass, rested silent for a while, his eyes full of a solemn rapture. "My friends," he went on at length, with lowered voice, "know you that old song? "'Methought I walked still to and fro, And from her company could not go-- But when I waked it was not so: In youth is pleasure, in youth is pleasure.' "All that autumn I spent under her father's roof, and--my leave having been extended--all the winter following. The old Count had convinced himself by this time that by accepting the crown he would confer a signal service on Corsica, and had opened a lengthy correspondence with the two Paolis, whose hesitation to accept this view at once puzzled and annoyed him. For me, I wished the correspondence might be prolonged for ever, for meanwhile I lived my days in company with Emilia, and we loved. "I was a fool. Yet I cannot tax myself that I played false to duty, though by helping to crown her father I was destroying my own hopes, since as heiress to his throne Emilia must be far removed from me. We scarcely thought of this, but lived in our love, we two. So the winter passed and the spring came and the _macchia_ burst into flower. "Prosper, you have never set eyes on the _macchia_, the glory of your kingdom. But you shall behold it soon, lad, and smell it--for its fragrance spreads around the island and far out to sea. It belts Corsica with verdure and a million million flowers--cistus and myrtle and broom and juniper; clematis and vetch and wild roses run mad. Deeper than the tall forests behind it the _macchia_ will hide two lovers, and under the open sky hedge off all the world but their passion . . . In the _macchia_ we roamed together, day after day, and forgot the world; forgot all but honour; for she, my lady, was a child of sixteen, and as her knight I worshipped her. Ah, those days! those scented days! "But while we loved and Count Ugo wrote letters, the two Paolis were doing; and by-and-by they played the strangest stroke in all Corsica's history. That spring, at Aleria on the east coast, there landed a man of whom the Corsican's had never heard. He came out of nowhere with a single ship and less than a score of attendants--to be precise, two officers, a priest, a secretary, a major-domo, an under-steward, a cook, three Tunisian slaves, and six lackeys. He had sailed from Algiers, with a brief rest in the port of Leghorn, and he stepped ashore in Turkish dress, with scarlet-lined cloak, turban, and scimetar. He called himself Theodore, a baron of Westphalia, and he brought with him a ship-load of arms and ammunition, a thousand zechins of Tunis, and letters from half a dozen of the Great Powers promising assistance. Whether these were genuine or not, I cannot tell you.