"King Solomon, of course!" said she. "For what lesser king should the Queen of Sheba wait?"
"To be sure!" says I. "No, ma'am,—your Majesty, I mean,—I didn't meet King Solomon. I should think you might find a more likely place to wait for him in than this cave. A king wouldn't be very likely to find his way in here, would he?"
She looked round with a proud kind o' look. "The chamber is small," she said, "but richly furnished,—richly furnished. You may observe, slave, that the walls are lined with virgin gold."
She waved her hand, and I looked round too at the yellow clay walls and ceilin'. You never could think of such a place, Dolly, unless you'd ha' seen it. However that poor creature had fixed it up so, no mortal will ever know, I expect. There was a fireplace in one corner, and a hole in the roof over it. I found out arterwards that the smoke went out through a hollow tree that grew right over the cave. There was a fryin'-pan, and some meal in a kind o' bucket made o' birch-bark, some roots, and a few apples. All round the sides she'd stuck alder-berries and flowers and pine-tassels, and I don't know what not. There was nothin' like a cheer or table, nothin' but the heap o' skins she was settin' on,—that was bed and sofy and everything else for her, I reckon.
And she herself—oh, dear! it makes me want to laugh and cry, both together, to think how that unfortinit creature was rigged up. She had a sheepskin over her shoulders, tied round her neck, with the wool outside. On her head was a crown o' birch-bark, cut into p'ints like the crowns in pictures, and stained yeller with the yeller clay,—I suppose she thought it was gold,—and her long black hair was stuck full o' berries and leaves and things. Under the sheepskin she had just nothin' but rags,—such rags as you never seed in all your days, Dolly, your mother bein' the tidy body she is. And moccasins on her feet,—no stockin's; that finished her Majesty's dress. Well, poor soul! and she as proud and contented as you please, fancyin' herself all gold and di'monds.
I made up my mind pretty quick what was the right thing for me to do; and I said, as soothin' as I could,—
"Your Majesty, I don't reelly advise you to wait here no longer for King Solomon. I never seed no kings round these woods,—it's out o' the line o' kings, as you may say,—and I don't think he'd be likely to find you out, even if he should stroll down to take a look at the falls, same as I did. Haven't you no other—palace, that's a little more on the travelled road, where he'd be likely to pass?"
"No," she said, kind o' mournful, and shakin' her head,—"no, slave. I had once, but it was taken from me."
"If you don't mind my bein' so bold," I said, "where was you stayin' before you come here?"
"With devils!" she said, so fierce and sudden that Bluff and I both jumped. "Speak not of them, lest my wrath descend upon you."