He was, or rather had been, a small king in South-eastern Ireland,(27) the eldest of four brothers, having succeeded his father about ten years before. There had been a quarrel about the division of some property. The Prince was a little obscure in his description of the property; indeed it was a matter about which he was shrewd enough to say as little as possible. But his hearers had no difficulty in presuming that it consisted of spoil carried off from Britain. The quarrel had come to blows. All the nation had been divided into parties in the dispute. Finally he had been compelled by his ungrateful subjects to fly for his life. Would the Emperor bring him back? He was liberal, even extravagant, in his offers. He would bring the whole island under his dominion. (As a matter of fact, his dominions had never reached more than seventy miles inland, and he had contrived to make himself so hated during his ten years’ reign that he had scarcely a friend or follower left.) And what an island it was! There never was such a place. The sheep were fatter, the cows gave more milk than in any other place in the whole world. And there was gold too, gold to be had for the picking up; and amber on the shores, and pearls in the rivers. In short, it was a treasure-house of wealth, which was waiting for the lucky first-comer. “Are you a Christian?” asked Constans. The exiled chief would have gladly said that he was, and indeed for a moment thought of the audacious fiction that his attachment to the new faith had been one of the causes of his expulsion. He was, in fact, a savagely bigoted pagan, and had dealt very roughly with one or two missionaries who had ventured into his neighbourhood. But he reflected that the falsehood would infallibly be detected, and would inevitably do him a great deal of harm. “No!” he exclaimed; “would that I were. But there is nothing that I so much desire if only I could attain to that blessing. But I promise to be baptized myself, and to have every man, woman, and child within my dominions baptized within a month, if you will only bring me back to them.” Even Constans thought this zeal to be a little excessive. “And how many men can you bring into the field?” asked the more practical Julian; “and what money can you find for the pay of the soldiers?” The stranger was taken aback at these direct questions. “All my subjects, all my treasures are yours,” he said, after a pause. “I don’t believe,” said one of the tribunes in Latin to Julian, “that he has any subjects besides this wretched interpreter, or any treasure beyond what he wears on his neck and his fingers.” “Shall he withdraw?” said Julian to his father. Constantine, who never spoke when he could avoid speaking, answered by a nod, and the Irish Prince withdrew.