But the Lady Emir looked on Wenlock in a very different way to that in which she had regarded Kettle.  Mr. Wenlock possessed (as indeed he had himself pointed out on the Parakeet) a fine outward appearance, and in fact anywhere he could have been remarked on as a personable man.  And things came about as Kettle shrewdly anticipated they would.  The Lady Emir had not remained unmarried all these years through sheer distaste for matrimony.  She had been celibate through an unconquerable pride of blood.  None but men of colored race had been around her in all her wars, her governings, and her diplomacies; and always she had been too proud to mate with them.  But here now stood before her a male of her own race, handsome, upstanding, and obviously impressed by her power and majesty.  He would not rule her; he would not even attempt a mastery; she would still be Emir—­and a wife.  The chance had never occurred to her before; might never occur again.  She was quick to make her decision.

Ruling potentates are not as other folk with their love affairs, and the Lady Emir of Dunkhot (forgetting that she was once Teresa Anderson, and a modest English maiden) unconsciously fell in with the rule of her caste.  The English speech, long disused, came to her unhandily, but the purport of what she said was plain.  She made proclamation that the Englishman Wenlock should there and then become her husband, and let slaves fetch the mullah to unite them before the sun had dropped below another bar of the windows.

She did not ask her future husband’s wishes or his permission.  She simply stated her sovereign will and looked that it should be carried out forthwith.

A couple of slaves scurried out on their missions—­evidently their Emir was accustomed to have her orders carried out with promptness—­and for long enough Wenlock stood wordless in front of the divan, far more like a criminal than a prospective bridegroom.  The lady, with the tube of the water-pipe between her lips, puffed smoke and made no further speech.  She had stated her will:  the result would follow in due course.

But at last Wenlock, as though wrenching himself into wakefulness out of some horrid dream, turned wildly to Kettle, and in a torrent of words implored for rescue.

The little sailor heard him quite unmoved.  “You asked my help,” he said, “in a certain matter, and I’ve given it, and things have turned out just as I’ve guessed they would.  You maundered about your dear Teresa on my steamboat till I was nearly sick, and, by James! you’ve got her now, and no error about it.”

“But you said you didn’t approve,” cried the wretched man.

“I quite know what I said,” retorted Kettle grimly.  “I didn’t approve of your way.  But this is different.  You’re not a very fine specimen, but anyway you’re English, and it does good to the old shop at home to have English people for kings and queens of foreign countries.  I’ve got a theory about that.”