But the king had himself been sent by his father to a town called Marseilles, very far at the end of the world; and he wished his son to receive a similar education.

How unhappy the little prince was in leaving Kιrika; he looked at his sabre, hung his gun against the wall, and set sail with M. Bonfils, a clerk in a mercantile house, who sent him home every year with the gold dust stolen from the poor negroes.

Mβdou, however, was resigned; he wished to be a great king some day, to command the troop of Amazons, to be the proprietor of these fields of corn and wheat, and of the palace filled with jars of palm-oil and with treasures of gold and ivory. To own these riches he must deserve them, and be capable of defending them when necessary,—and Mβdou early learned that it is hard to be a king; for when one has more pleasures than the rest of the world, one has also greater responsibilities.

His departure was the occasion of great public fetes, of sacrifices to the fetish and to the divinities of the sea. All the temples were thrown open for these solemnities, the prayers of the nation were offered there, and at the last moment, when the ship set sail, fifteen prisoners of war were executed on the shore, and the executioner threw their heads into a great copper basin.

“Good gracious!” gasped Jack, pulling the bedclothes over his head.

It is certainly not very agreeable to hear such stories told by the actors in them; and Jack was very glad that he was in the Moronval Academy rather than in that terrible land of Dahomey.

Mβdou seeing the effect he had produced, dwelt no longer on the ceremonies preceding his departure, but proceeded to describe his arrival and life at Marseilles.

He told of the college there, of the high walls and the benches in the courtyard, where the pupils cut their names; of the solemn professor, who sternly said, if a whisper was heard, “Not so much noise, if you please!” The close air of the recitation-rooms, the monotonous scratching of pens, the lessons repeated over and over again, were all new and very trying to Mβdou. His one idea was to get into the sun; but the walls were so high, the courtyard so narrow, that he could never find enough to bask in. Nothing amused or interested him. He was never allowed to go out as were the other pupils, and for a very good reason. At first he had induced M. Bonfils to take him to the wharves, where he often saw merchandise from his own country, and sometimes went into ecstasies at some well-known mark.

The steamers puffing and blowing, and the great ships setting their sails, all spoke to him of departure and deliverance.

Mβdou dreamed of these ships all through school-hours,—one had brought him to that cold gray land, another would take him away. And possessed by this fixed idea, he paid no attention to his A B C’s, for his eyes saw nothing save the blue of the sea and the blue of the sky above. The result of this was, that one fine day he escaped from the college and hid himself on one of the vessels of M. Bonfils; he was found in time, but escaped again, and the second time was not discovered until the ship was in the middle of the Gulf of Lyons. Any other child would have been kept on board; but when Mβdou’s name was known, the captain took his royal Highness back to Marseilles, relying on a reward.

After that, the boy became more and more unhappy, for he was kept a very close prisoner. Notwithstanding all this, he escaped once more; and this time, on being discovered, made no resistance, but obeyed so gently, and with such a sad smile, that no one had the heart to punish him. At last the principal of the institution declined the responsibility of so determined a pupil. Should he send the little prince back to Dahomey? M. Bonfils dared not permit this, fearing thereby to lose the good graces of the king. In the midst of these perplexities Moronvol’s advertisement appeared, and the prince was at once dispatched to 23 Avenue Montaigne,—“the most beautiful situation in Paris,”—where he was received, as you may well believe, with open arms. This heir of a far-off kingdom was a godsend to the academy. He was constantly on exhibition; M. Moronval showed him at theatres and concerts, and along the boulevards, reminding one of those perambulating advertisements that are to be seen in all large cities.

He appeared in society, such society at least as admitted M. Moronval, who entered a room with all the gravity of Fιnιlon conducting the Duke of Burgundy. The two were announced as “His Royal Highness the Prince of Dahomey, and M. Moronval, his tutor.”

For a month the newspapers were full of anecdotes of Mβdou; an attachι of a London paper was sent to interview him, and they had a long and serious talk as to the course the young prince should pursue when called to the throne of his ancestors. The English journal published an account of the curious dialogue, and the vague replies certainly left much to be desired.

At first all the expenses of the academy were discharged by this solitary pupil, Monsieur Bonfils paying the bill that was presented to him without a word of dispute. Mβdou’s education, however, made but little progress. He still continued among the A B C’s, and Madame Moronval’s charming method made no impression upon him. His defective pronunciation was still retained, and his half-childish way of speaking was not changed. But he was gay and happy. All the other children were compelled to yield to him a certain deference.