"But tell me. Is a Mohammedan marriage made here binding for an Englishman?"
"It's as legally binding as if the Archbishop of Canterbury tied the knot."
"Very well," said Kettle. "Now let me tell you, sir, for the last time, that I don't like what you're going to do. To my mind, it's not a nice thing marrying a woman that you evidently despise, just for her money."
Wenlock flushed. "Look here," he said, "I refuse to be lectured, especially by you. Aren't you under promise to get £50 from me the moment I'm safely married? And didn't you fairly jump at the chance of fingering it."
Captain Kettle did not hit this man who cast such an unpleasant imputation on him; he did not even let him feel the lash of his tongue in return. He merely smiled grimly, and said: "Get down into the boat, you and your case of rifles."
For the moment Wenlock started and hesitated. He seemed to detect something ominous in this order. But then he took a brace on his courage, and after a couple of deck hands had lowered the rifles into the dancing boat, he clambered gingerly down after them, and sat himself beside the white-robed man in the stern sheets. Kettle followed, and the boat headed off for the opening between the reefs.
The Indian Ocean swells swung beneath them, and presently were breaking on the grim stone barriers on either hand in a roar of sound. The triangular dorsal fins of a couple of sharks convoyed them in, in case of accidents; and overhead a crowd of sea-fowl screamed and swooped and circled. But none of these things interested them. The town ahead, which jerked nearer to every tug of the oars, held the eye. In it was Teresa Anderson, heiress, a personage of whom each of them had his own private conception. In it also were fanatical Arabs, whom they hoped the fear of shadowy British gunboats would deter from open piracy.
The boat passed between a cluster of ragged shipping which swayed at the anchorage, and Wenlock might have stared with curious eyes (had he been so minded) on real dhows which had even then got real slaves ready for market in their stuffy 'tween decks. But he was gazing with a fascinated stare at the town. Over the arch of the water-gate, for which they were heading, was what at first appeared to be a frieze of small rounded balls; but a nearer view resolved these into human heads, in various stages of desiccation. Evidently justice in Dunkhot was determined that the criminal who once passed through its hands should no more tread the paths of unrighteousness.
The boat landed against a jetty of stone, and they stepped out dryshod. Wenlock stared at the gate with its dressing of heads as though they fascinated him.
"And Teresa will have been brought up within sight of all this," he murmured to himself, "and will be accustomed to it. Fancy marrying a woman who has spent twenty years of her life in the neighborhood of all this savagery."