* * * * *
Miss Millie Tavish, seated luxuriously upon soft cushions under the thatched roof of a deck-house, dreamt dreams of royalty and of an urbane negro who had raised his hat to her. She watched the sweating paddlers as they dug the water rhythmically singing a little song, and already she tasted the joys of dominion.
She had the haziest notion of the new position she was to occupy. If she had been told that she would share her husband with half-a-dozen other women—and those interchangeable from time to time—she would have been horrified.
Sanders had not explained that arrangement to her, partly because he was a man with a delicate mind, and partly because he thought he had solved the problem without such explanation.
She smiled a triumphant little smile every time she thought of him and her method of outwitting him. It had been easier than she had anticipated.
She had watched the Commissioner out of sight and had ordered the boat to return to shore, for standing an impassive witness to her embarkation had been the headman Tobolaka had sent. Moreover, in the letter of the king had been a few simple words of Isisi and the English equivalent.
She thought of many things—of the busy city she had left, of the dreary boarding-house, of the relations who had opposed her leaving, of the little legacy which had come to her just before she sailed, and which had caused her to hesitate, for with that she could have lived in fair comfort.
But the glamour of a throne—even a Central African throne—was upon her—she—Miss Tavish—Millie Tavish—a hired help——
And here was the actuality. A broad river, tree-fringed banks, high rushes at the water edge, the feather-headed palms of her dreams showing at intervals, and the royal paddlers with their plaintive song.
She came to earth as the paddlers ceased, not together as at a word of command but one by one as they saw the obstruction.