“You see, once I had the clue, the whole mystery surrounding the Queen of the Desert vanished away,” said Cyril. “It is rather hard on Mlle. Mirkovics, for I am convinced that one of her reasons for bringing the Queen here was the desire to remove her beyond the reach of my baleful influence, but that is the way things happen in this world. By the bye, the Queen would like me to present you both to her to-morrow, so be prepared.”
“Count,” said Mr Hicks warningly, “I’m a plain American citizen, whose intercourse with kings and queens and courts has been strictly professional. Do you ask me to compromise my independence right now by figuring round as a member of your suite?”
“No, I don’t,” said Cyril, while Mansfield laughed, remembering the Baroness’s description of himself; “I want to introduce you both, as my friends, to the lady who is going to do me the honour of marrying me. She knows that I owe my life to you both several times over, and that I couldn’t have got here without you.”
“Shake, Count!” said Mr Hicks; “you’re a white man, sir. And if it would make you any happier, you may bet your last red cent I would go so far as to put on a Court suit for the occasion, if you had one here and offered it me.”
With this magnanimous surrender on Mr Hicks’s part, the conversation ended, and on the morrow it appeared that he was highly dissatisfied with the meagreness of the preparation it was possible to make for his visit to the Queen. His travel-worn clothes and the helmet in which he had ridden out of Damascus were the objects of much anxious care, and he went so far as to offer to part with his cherished beard, if Cyril thought well, but the sacrifice was gratefully declined. Little time was allowed for personal decoration, since the prisoners had scarcely finished breakfast when the sheikh made his appearance, his demeanour betokening a vast increase of respect, to the extent even of sending a messenger in advance, to ask whether the Prince of the Jews would receive him. On entering, he bowed to the ground before Cyril.
“O my lord, the Princess desires thee and thy servants to come to her. ‘Where are my friends?’ she says. ‘Bring them here, that I may make with them the treaty that they desire.’ O my lord, how is this? It has never been the pleasure of the Princess heretofore that any stranger should approach her.”
“What did I tell you?” asked Cyril, through Mr Hicks. “Didn’t I say that the Princess would receive me and enter into a treaty?”
“O my lord, thy words sounded in the ears of thy servant as foolishness, but they have indeed proved true. My lord will speak favourably of his servant before the Princess?”
“By all means,” said Cyril pleasantly, as the sheikh drew back to allow him to pass out of the cave. Once outside, the whole party mounted their horses, and rode up the hill-path in state, escorted by the tribesmen, who discharged their guns at intervals to do honour to the mighty stranger. Arrived at the gate, where the Armenian servants were drawn up in line to receive the visitors, the sheikh alone entered with his guests. Just as the gate was closing, Mansfield uttered an exclamation.
“There are two men on camels riding across the desert from the direction of Damascus!” he cried. “They are kicking up a tremendous cloud of dust, so they must be coming fast.”