244 A TRIO OP QUEENS. 



the arena for the royal combatants, Instead of drawing 

 their weapons, as became their artificial rank, the gentle 

 maidens sat or paraded side by side, took hold of each 

 other's arms, whispered in each other's ears, and kept 

 looking as prim and pleasant as boarding-school young ladies 

 on an exhibition night. The people were astounded; the lords 

 alone delighted at what seemed to promise the entire completion 

 of what had been undertaken by their old confederate, with 

 whom they ever and anon contrived to exchange a furtive wink. 

 But what was to be done ? Tliree queens at once ! an 

 Amazonian triumvirate ! Such a tiling was quite unexampled 

 in the annals of Apia. Meetings were held among the people, 

 \\lio finally agreed that their crown must be made elective, and 

 that one of the young candidates, if so they might be called, 

 should be chosen to wear it. Yet the choice itself was not 

 without embarrassment; the young virgins were as much alike 

 as three peas, or the three sides of an equilateral triangle. 

 Still people will diil'er about three straws, and will declare 

 violent preferences where they would be puzzled to discern a 

 difference. Accordingly, from the unambitious spirit of these 

 sovereigns fresh from the mint, who cared as little for the 

 crown as if they had been so many Ladies Jane Gray, arose a 

 party spirit till then unknown within the realm of Apia. Each 

 of the lamb-like ladies soon became the nominal head of a furious 

 wolf-like faction, and the din, first of wordy quarrels, then of 

 clashing weapons, resounded through the Amazonian monarchy. 



