They passed in through the gate, the sentries staring at them curiously, and once inside, in the full heat and smell of the narrow street beyond, Wenlock said:  “Look here, Skipper, you’re resourceful, and you know these out-of-the-way places.  How had we better start to find the girl?”

Kettle glanced coolly round at the grim buildings and the savage Arabs who jostled them, and said, with fine sarcasm:  “Well, sir, as there doesn’t appear to be a policeman about, I should recommend you to apply at the post office.”

“I don’t want to be mocked.”

“Then, if you’ll take the tip from me, you’ll crowd back to my steamboat as fast as you can go.  You’ll find it healthier.”

“I’m going on with it,” said Wenlock doggedly.  “And I ask you to earn your L50, and give me help.”

“Then, if you distinctly ask me to help you on into trouble like that, of course, the best thing to do is to go straight on to the palace.”

“Show the way, then,” said Wenlock curtly.

Kettle gave the word to the white-robed pilot, and together they set off down the narrow winding streets, with an ever-increasing train of Arabs and negroes following in their wake.  Wenlock said nothing as he walked, but it was evident from the working of his face that his mind was very full.  But Kettle looked about him with open interest, and thoughts in verse about this Eastern town came to him with pleasant readiness.

The royal residence was the large building encircled with gardens which they had seen from the sea, and they entered it with little formality.  There was no trouble either about obtaining an audience.  The Lady Emir had, it appeared, seen the steamer’s approach with her own eyes; indeed, the whole of Dunkhot was excited by such an unusual arrival; and the Head of the State was as human in her curiosity as the meanest nigger among her subjects.

The audience hall was imposing.  It was bare enough, according to the rule of those heated Eastern lands, but it had an air of comfort and coolness, and in those parts where it was not severely plain, the beauty of its architecture was delicious.  Armed guards to the number of some forty men were posted round the walls, and at the further end, apparently belonging to the civil population, were some dozen other men squatting on the floor.  In the centre of the room was a naked wretch in chains; but sentence was hurriedly pronounced on him, and he was hustled away as the two Englishmen entered, and they found themselves face to face with the only woman in the room, the supreme ruler of this savage South Arabian coast town.

She was seated on a raised divan, propped by cushions, and in front of her was a huge water-pipe at which she occasionally took a meditative pull.  She was dressed quite in Oriental fashion, in trousers, zouave jacket, sash, and all the rest of it; but she was unmistakably English in features, though strongly suggestive of the Boadicea.  She was a large, heavily-boned woman, enormously covered with flesh, and she dandled across her knees that very unfeminine sceptre, an English cavalryman’s sword.  But the eye neglected these details, and was irresistibly drawn by the strongness of her face.  Even Kettle was almost awed by it.