In a second a cannon beside him was fired; then, quick as thought, others were fired in sequence, as though by one prolonged lightning-flash.

The roar was incessant, but getting less in detonating sound as the distance and the hills subdued it.

But in the general silence which prevailed round us we could hear the sound as though passing in a distant circle, till finally the line which had gone northward came back by the south, stopping at the last gun to south'ard of the Flagstaff.
"What was that wonderful circle ?" asked the King of the Lord High Admiral.
"That, Your Majesty, is the line of the frontier of the Blue Mountains.
Rupert has ten thousand cannon in line." "And who fires them?
I thought all the army must be here." "The women, Your Majesty.

They are on frontier duty to-day, so that the men can come here." Just at that moment one of the Crown Prince's Guards brought to the side of the King's aero something like a rubber ball on the end of a string.
The Queen held it out to the baby in her arms, who grabbed at it.

The guard drew back.