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."
Now the Lady Emir was not listening to all this tirade by any means unmoved. To begin with, it was not etiquette to speak at all in her presence if unaddressed, and to go on with, although she did not understand one word in ten of what was being spoken, she gathered the gist of it, and this did not tend to compose her. She threw away the snaky stem of water-pipe, and gripped both hands on the trooper's sword, till the muscles stood out in high relief.