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.
But Captain Owen Kettle-was not a man who could be kept in awe for long. He took off his helmet, marched briskly up toward the divan, and bowed.
"Good afternoon, your Ladyship," he said. "I trust I see you well. I'm Captain Kettle, master of that steamboat now lying in your roads, and this is Mr. Wenlock, a passenger of mine, who heard that you were English, and has come to put you in the way of some property at home."
The lady sat more upright, and set back her great shoulders. "I am English," she said. "I was called in the Giaour faith Teresa Anderson."
"That's the name," said Kettle. "Mr. Wenlock's come to take you away to step into a nice thing at home."
"I am Emir here. Am I asked to be Emir in your country?"
"Why, no," said Kettle; "that job's filled already, and we aren't thinking of making a change. Our present Emir in England (who, by the way, is a lady like yourself) seems to suit us very well. No, you'll be an ordinary small-potato citizen, like everybody else, and you will probably find it a bit of a change."
"I do not onderstand," said the woman. "I have not spoke your language since I was child. Speak what you say again."
"I'll leave it to Mr. Wenlock, your Majesty, if you've no objections, as he's the party mostly interested; and if you'd ask one of your young men to bring me a long drink and a chair, I'll be obliged. It's been a hot walk up here. I see you don't mind smoke," he added, and lit a cheroot.