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So Kuana rapidly subsided into quiescence. What might be going on in the rest of the kingdom could not be known; but, as for the capital, that appeared to be Yuri’s.

Just before sunset, however, there came a sudden change in the atmosphere. Firing recommenced. Some of the yellow flags were torn down, and replaced with red. Some Cupians sallied from the house across the road from the jail, assaulted an ant policeman, and threw up a barricade extending from one side of the road to the other.

Thereat there was much running around in the corridors of the jail, and hurried conferences between the wardens, all of which the captives could see through the gratings of the cell doors.

“What is it all about?” Cabot wrote on the paper.

And his cellmate wrote back: “I can’t understand it. They are shouting: ‘Long live King Kew!’”

What could it mean? King Kew was dead. They had seen him lying there in the stadium with the blood pouring out of a gaping hole in his right breast. And yet now the populace were shouting: “Long live King Kew.”