When she heard the words—"and that old woman there"—she at first fell back on her seat as if she had been shot, but then she jumped up, with flashing eye and burning cheek, and thus apostrophised the King.
"An old woman! An old woman! That savage, that Goth, that cannibal—to call me an old woman! Do you not know, you wretched thing, that in your seraglio there is not a woman fit to be named in the same breath with me? Old! I, to be called old at my age!"
In spite of all our efforts, we could not succeed in calming our irate companion. Madame de Guéran alone managed it by telling her that in the countries where we were a woman is considered old at twenty, and that she herself, notwithstanding her evident youth, would be put in the same category with Miss Poles.
The King, without taking any notice of the exclamations and gesticulations of Miss Poles, or paying the slightest attention to a scene, which, by the way, must have been quite unintelligible to him, went on eating his bananas and cola nuts. He had, however, the politeness to offer a banana to de Morin, who, still astride on his stool, with his back to us, munched it quietly and, through the medium of Nassar, gave the king some sotto voce particulars about Miss Poles which seemed to amuse his Majesty.
At last, Munza, giving up all circuitous questioning and beating about the bush, said to Nassar abruptly—
"The white woman," looking towards Madame de Guéran, "is, doubtless, the chief's wife?"
Our interpreter, who had been cautioned not to give any reply unless dictated by us, duly translated the question.
"Tell him," said de Morin, "that I have no wife."
The King, as soon as this reply was conveyed to him, opened his mouth to its utmost limits in token of amazement, and all his court imitated his example, a proceeding which frightened Joseph and the Nubians of the escort awfully. They thought the dinner hour was come, and that they would be the pièce de resistance.
As for the women, they simply roared with laughter, although they were accustomed not to indulge in any such demonstrations in the presence of their royal spouse. He, too, led away by the example of his surroundings, ended by bursting into a fit of laughter. This Sultan, possessing from three to four hundred wives, counting his mothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, could with difficulty understand a man being destitute of a single one. But his merriment was only transitory. His countenance recovered its serious, apathetic expression, and he requested that de Morin would point out which of his companions was the husband of the white woman.