t real slaves ready for
market in their stuffy 'tween decks. But he was gazing with a fascinated
stare at the town. Over the arch of the water-gate, for which they were
heading, was what at first appeared to be a frieze of small rounded
balls; but a nearer view resolved these into human heads, in various
stages of desiccation. Evidently justice in Dunkhot was determined that
the criminal who once passed through its hands should no more tread the
paths of unrighteousness.

The boat landed against a jetty of stone, and they stepped out dryshod.
Wenlock stared at the gate with its dressing of heads as though they
fascinated him.

"And Teresa will have been brought up within sight of all this," he
murmured to himself, "and will be accustomed to it. Fancy marrying a
woman who has spent twenty years of her life in the neighborhood of all
this savagery."

"Strong place in its way," said Kettle, squinting up at the brass cannon
on the walls. "Those guns up there are well kept, you can see. Of course
one of our cheapest fourpenny gunboats could knock the whole shop into
bricks in half an hour at three-mile range; but it's strong enough to
hold out against any niggers along the coast here, and that's all the
Queen here aims at. By the way, Emir, not Queen, is what she calls
herself, so the pilot tells me. I suppose she thinks that as she's doing
a man's job in a man's way, she may as well take a full man's ticket."

They passed in through the gate, the sentries staring at them curiously,
and once inside, in the full heat and smell of the narrow street beyond,
Wenlock said: "Look here, Skipper, you're resourceful, and you know
these out-of-the-way places. How had we better start to find the girl?"

Kettle glanced coolly round at the grim buildings and the savage Arabs
who jostled them, and said, with fine sarcasm: "Well, sir, as there
doesn't appear to be a policeman about, I should recommend you to apply
at the post office."

"I don't want to be mocked."

"Then, if you'll take the tip from me, you'll crowd back to my steamboat
as fast as you can go. You'll find it healthier."

"I'm going on with it," said Wenlock doggedly. "And I ask you to earn
your L50, and give me help."

"Then, if you distinctly ask me to help you on into trouble like that,
of course, the best thing to do is to go straight on to the palace."

"Show the way, then," said Wenlock curtly.

Kettle gave the word to the white-robed pilot, and together t