CHAPTER XXV 

It chanced that a brilliant autumn brought a season of great prosperity to the Thetian wine-growers and farmers, and the year of Ughtred's accession to the throne seemed likely to be marked with a white stone in their annals. Never had a ruler been more popular with all classes. His military system, while it made no undue demands upon the people, provoked the admiration of Europe, and several important and successful industrial undertakings were due entirely to his instigation. Mr. Van Decht, fascinated by the climate, the primitive but delightful life, and a firm believer in the possibilities of the country, still lingered in the capital, and already the results of his large investments were beginning to be felt. Only a few people knew of the hidden danger which was ever brooding over the land--a danger which Ughtred had realized from the first, and which from the first he had set himself steadfastly to avert. A soldier himself, he knew something of the horrors of war. Nothing seemed to him more awful than the vision of this beautiful country blackened and devastated, her corn-fields soaked with blood, her pleasant pastoral life swept away in the grim struggle against an only partially-civilized enemy. He set himself passionately to work to strive for peace. 

Reist came to him one evening straight from the House of Laws with a suggestion. 

"Your Majesty," he said, "the people are asking for a queen." 

Ughtred laughed. 

"I'm sorry I can't oblige them off-hand," he answered. 
What happened the fall he became king?
It chanced that a brilliant autumn brought a season of great prosperity to the Thetian wine-growers and farmers