244: A TRIO OF QUEENS. 



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 con- 

 trived to exchange a furtive wink. 



But what was to be done! Three queens at once! an 

 Amazonian triumvirate ! Such a thing was quite unexampled 

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

 who 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 differ 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. 



