“I conclude, ma’am, it’s what we should call ‘conservatory’ scenery?” Lady Something murmured.
“It is the land of the jessamine-flower, the little amorous jessamine-flower,” the Queen gently cooed with a sidelong smiling glance, “that twines itself sometimes to the right-hand, at others to the left, just according to its caprices!”
“It sounds I fear to be unhealthy, ma’am.”
“And it is the land also, of romance, my dear, where shyness is a quality which is entirely unknown,” the Queen broke off, as one of her ladies, bearing a darbouka, advanced with an air of purposefulness towards her.
The hum of voices which filled the room might well have tended to dismay a vocalist of modest powers, but the young matron known to the Court as ‘Tropical Molly,’ and whom her mistress addressed as Timzra, soon shewed herself to be equal to the occasion.
“Under the blue gum-tree
I am sitting waiting,
Under the blue gum-tree
I am waiting all alone!”
Her voice reached the ears of the fresh-faced ensigns and the beardless subalterns in the Guard Room far beyond, and startled the pages in the distant dormitories, as they lay smoking on their beds.
And then, the theme changing, and with an ever-increasing passion, fervour and force:
“I heard a Watch-dog in the night ...
Wailing, wailing ...
Why is the watch-dog wailing?
He is wailing for the Moon!”
“That is one of the very saddest songs,” the King remarked, “that I have ever heard. ‘Why is the watchdog wailing? He is wailing for the Moon!’” And the ambitions and mortifications of kingship, for a moment weighed visibly upon him.