“It is, indeed,” answered Dick, smiling at the passionate fervour of his friend’s speech. “Your Majesty has but to explain to us the nature of your trouble, and it shall go hard indeed with us if we do not devise some means to help you, especially as, unless I am entirely mistaken, you are a countrywoman of our own. Get up, Phil, and let Her Majesty tell us her story. And mind your ‘P’s’ and ‘Q’s’, old man,” he added in a low tone; “don’t let your sympathy and enthusiasm run away with you, or you will be apt to excite possibly awkward comment on the part of Her Majesty’s ladies. You have made some of them open their eyes pretty wide already, I can assure you.”
With a muttered ejaculation Grosvenor hastily scrambled to his feet, while the Queen, beckoning to two of her ladies, directed them to place a couple of settees for her visitors close to her couch. Upon these the two Englishmen seated themselves, in obedience to a sign from Her Majesty, who thereupon addressed them:
“I fear,” said she, “that I shall find it quite impossible to make you understand how astonished and how glad I am to see you both. I am astonished, because it is a law of this land that no aliens are ever permitted to enter it—and live; and I am glad because you, like myself, are English, and my dear mother taught me to believe that Englishmen are always ready to help their countrywomen in distress under all circumstances. And I am in distress, the greatest distress that I suppose it is possible for a woman to be in. But let me tell you my story—it will not take long—and then perhaps you will understand.
“I am twenty-three years of age, and of English parentage. My father was an officer in the Indian army, and for nearly four years my mother resided with him at a little frontier post called Bipur. Then trouble arose; the hill tribes in the neighbourhood of Bipur committed certain excesses, and an expedition was dispatched under my father’s command. Fighting ensued, and my father was killed in one of the earliest engagements that took place. There was now nothing to keep my mother in India, therefore, as the climate did not suit her, she made immediate arrangements to return to England, taking passage in a sailing ship that was proceeding home by way of the Cape, a long sea voyage having been prescribed for the benefit of her health.
“I do not know how it happened, nor did my mother, but the ship was wrecked on the African coast, and many lives were lost. My mother, however, happened to be one of the saved; and she, with the rest of the survivors, fell into the hands of certain natives who surprised their camp on the beach in the dead of night. The men of the party were all slain; and what became of the few women who survived I do not know, for my mother never told me; but she was brought by her captors to this country and presented to King Geshuri, who made her his queen. Two months later I was born; and my mother never had any other children.
“Five years ago King Geshuri died; and my mother became the reigning monarch of the country, in accordance with the Izreelite law. But she was never strong; and three years ago she, too, died, leaving me absolutely alone to govern this fierce, headstrong people as best I could.”
Here the Queen’s emotion overcame her for a moment, and she hid her face in her hands, while the tears welled over and trickled through her fingers. Her distress moved the young Englishmen powerfully, and they began to murmur expressions of sympathy and assurances of help. But, quickly recovering her composure, the Queen resumed her narrative.
“That, however, is not what is troubling me, for my mother, realising that I must one day become a queen, devoted herself entirely to educating me in such a manner as to prepare me, as well as she could, for the discharge of my difficult duties. Unfortunately, we had no books, so my mother was compelled to rely entirely upon her own knowledge and experience in the matter of my education and training; but she not only taught me the English language, but also how to read and write it, spending many hours in printing with her own hand long passages containing maxims for my guidance, simply that I might have the means of learning to read English books, should ever any such fall into my hands.
“And now I come to the matter that is troubling me. The Elders tell me that the time has arrived when I must take to myself a husband; and they have suggested—oh, I cannot tell you how many men!—Izreelite nobles, of course—from whom I may make my choice. But I do not like any of them; there is not one among them all whom I do not thoroughly detest, for they are all fierce, arrogant, overbearing men who do not even pretend that they have any desire to make me happy. All they want is to be king, so that they may enjoy the absolute power and authority of a monarch; for, if I marry, my husband will at once become the ruler of the country, according to the Izreelite law, and I shall merely be his wife. Fortunately, I cannot be compelled to marry, and I won’t—I won’t,” with a passionate little stamp of the foot, “until I meet with a man whom I can—can—love. But I know I shall have no peace until I consent to marry somebody; the Elders are wild with anxiety that I should choose a husband; they worry me every day, ay, and almost every hour of the day, about it, until I am driven very nearly out of my senses by the thought that, sooner or later, I shall be constrained to become the wife of some man whom I detest. That is my trouble, gentlemen; I wonder if you are clever enough to devise a means of helping me.”
“Yes, Your Majesty, we are,” answered Dick confidently. “I don’t say that we already have a plan; for that would be asserting far too much. But you have told us the nature of your trouble, which of course is the first thing that it is necessary for us to know; and now we will lose no time in thinking out a remedy. Trust to us, madam; we will not fail you. We have practically pledged ourselves to spend the remainder of our lives in your country—your Elders compelled us to do that—and the removal of your trouble and the securing of your happiness shall have precedence of every other consideration with us.”