Her answer, only through her eyes, that if I was not, in fact, a very ordinary individual I had made a very commonplace remark, so added to my embarrassment that we had talked about the weather and the sea for some time before I got back to my mooring and felt reasonably secure. Before breakfast was over we were getting along better, though I could not have concealed the admiration I did not express. At the end of the meal the Queen and I retired to the lounging room, Deverell going forward to look after the ship. His attitude toward her was one of devotion that amounted almost to homage, which she accepted as her right, and he spoke of and to her only as “Queen.” Naturally, I addressed her in the same way, as that was the only name Deverell had used when he started to introduce me, and I then knew her by no other.
“We are headed for my retreat,” she explained. “I want you to see it, and your visit there will give us an opportunity to get better acquainted. I should like to have you stay with us as long as you can. I will put you down in Hong Kong or Singapore on three or four days’ notice.”
I assured her the prospect was delightful. With a bow and a smile that encouraged veritable loquacity she asked me to tell her all about myself, and she displayed so much interest in my different filibustering expeditions, and the adventures that grew out of them, that I gradually told her the whole story. When my recital brought me to the China Sea her interest became even more lively, as to details, but she displayed the same intimate knowledge of my movements, in a general way, that Deverell had shown.
In the course of the numerous long talks which followed, I felt that I was regaining some of the ground I had lost by my blunders in my first bewilderment, and though my infatuation grew stronger every time I was in her magnetic presence, which charged my whole being with the electrical energy of life at its best, I said not another word to her about it, on the ship. As we came to understand each other better she asked me to tell her all I had heard about her. I was surprised, but I knew she meant me to be perfectly frank with her, so I repeated, in a general way, the vague and vapory whisperings as to her wonderful beauty, on the one hand, and her alleged bloodthirstiness and wantonness on the other, which latter stories, I told her, could not be tolerated for an instant by any one who had ever seen her. She smiled bitterly.
“I never have cared what people said or thought of me,” she said very slowly, “until recently. Far from enjoying the life I have been compelled to lead, I have suffered from it. It has been hard, and I have had to face and solve its problems alone. Craving friendship as flowers do the sun, and needing it as much, I have had to cut myself off from the world and try to make myself believe that I have neither heart nor conscience. When we get home I will tell you the story of my life, as you have told me yours.”
On the afternoon of the third day out from Hong Kong we ran into a group of islands, off to the eastward of the regular course to Singapore. Just as dinner was announced a flag was waved from the bridge and, following Deverell’s eyes, I made out an answering signal on the steep side of a small island just ahead of us. We were close inshore and I scanned the bank closely but could see no sign of either a landing or an opening. I was anxious to see what was to follow but a messenger brought word that the Queen was waiting dinner for me. Deverell did not dine with us but joined us as we were having coffee. The ship slowed down while we were at dinner and finally the screw stopped. Immediately the Queen led the way to the deck, where she had ordered coffee served.
“This,” she said at the head of the stairway, “is my kingdom—without a king. Isn’t it beautiful?”
I was a little in doubt as to whether her inquiry related to the scenery or the absence of a male ruler, but, without being able to distinguish clearly in the gathering tropic darkness, I assured her that it was the most beautiful place I had ever seen, wherein, when day dawned, I found I had not exaggerated. We were at the head of an oval lake, perhaps a mile and a half long, with mountains, whose ascent began close to the shore, rising crescent-shaped around it. There was a small village, composed of English cottages and native huts, at the end of the lake nearest to us. On three sides of the lake was a narrow beach, which widened at the village; the fourth side, toward the sea, was a perpendicular bluff, sixty feet or more high. I searched it for the passage through which we had entered the lake but nothing could I see but a bare wall of dark rock. The Queen watched me as I studied the situation and smiled at my perplexity. “Wait until to-morrow,” she laughed. “It would never do to let you into all of our secrets at once. You had best retire early, for we will go ashore at sunrise,” and she disappeared.
While we had been talking the topmasts were lowered, which I did not quite understand, and the fires drawn, and soon I was alone on deck, with a solitary watchman forward. There was no moon but under the soft light of the stars, low-hung and with a brilliancy seen only at or near the equator, I sat in silent wonder and admiration for hours. I was up again before it was full daylight and watched the lowering of the Queen’s launch. She appeared with the sun, accompanied by a Dyak woman whom I had not seen before, and we landed at a little stone dock in front of the village. All of the inhabitants, consisting of about fifty English and Scotch men and women, some with silvered locks and bent backs, and some of them crippled by the pirates, and nearly as many natives, crowded the pier to meet her, their manner one of the greatest affection and deference. We walked through the village, which was a model of neatness, and on up a winding path for nearly a mile, when a sharp turn around a flank of the mountain brought us to a large bungalow—the palace of the Queen. It was so situated that it could not be seen from the sea, at any point, but just around the turn and not fifty yards from the house was a deep shadowed bower from which there was a clear view of the ocean for two-thirds of the way around the compass. This was the outside sitting-room of the Queen and here breakfast was served. While it was being prepared she made herself more beautiful by changing her dress of European style for a native costume of flowing silk so becoming that I wondered at her ever wearing anything else.
After breakfast she looked down at the little town and far out to sea in silence for a long time, and then told me the story of her life. Her name, she said, was Katherine Crofton. Her father was one of the younger branches of a family which was headed by a Baron. The family crest was a sheaf of wheat and the motto “God grants the increase.” Her branch of the family had lived in the south of Ireland for several generations. Another branch had long lived at Derry Willow in the County Leitrim. Her father was a lieutenant commander in the British Navy and to prevent an accident he disobeyed the order of an incompetent and arrogant superior officer. In a quarrel that followed her father knocked his superior down and otherwise abused him, for which he was court-martialled and dismissed.