nt of words
implored for rescue.

The little sailor heard him quite unmoved. "You asked my help," he said,
"in a certain matter, and I've given it, and things have turned out just
as I've guessed they would. You maundered about your dear Teresa on my
steamboat till I was nearly sick, and, by James! you've got her now, and
no error about it."

"But you said you didn't approve," cried the wretched man.

"I quite know what I said," retorted Kettle grimly. "I didn't approve of
your way. But this is different. You're not a very fine specimen, but
anyway you're English, and it does good to the old shop at home to
have English people for kings and queens of foreign countries. I've got
a theory about that."

[Illustration: "I'M A BRITISH SUBJECT"]

Now the Lady Emir was not listening to all this tirade by any means
unmoved. To begin with, it was not etiquette to speak at all in her
presence if unaddressed, and to go on with, although she did not
understand one word in ten of what was being spoken, she gathered the
gist of it, and this did not tend to compose her. She threw away the
snaky stem of water-pipe, and gripped both hands on the trooper's sword,
till the muscles stood out in high relief.

"Do you say," she demanded, "you onwilling marry me?"

"Yes," said Wenlock, with sullen emphasis.

She turned her head, and gave orders in Arabic. With marvellous
readiness, as though it was one of the regular appointments of the
place, a couple of the guards trundled a stained-wooden block into the
middle of the floor, another took his station beside it with an
ominous-looking axe poised over his shoulder, and almost before Wenlock
knew what was happening, he was pinned by a dozen men at wrist and
ankle, and thrust down to kneel "with his neck over the block.

"Do you say," the Lady Emir repeated, "you onwilling marry me?"

"I'm a British subject," Wenlock shouted. "I've a Foreign Office
passport in my pocket. I'll appeal to my Government over this."

"My lad," said Kettle, "you won't have time to appeal. The lady isn't
being funny. She means square biz. If you don't be sensible, and see
things in the same way she does, it'll be one _che-opp_, and what
happens afterward won't interest you."

"Those spikes," said Wenlock faintly.

"Above the water-gate?" said Kettle. "Queer, but the same thing occurred
to me, too. You'd feel a bit lonely stuck up there getting sun-dried."

"I'll marry her."

"You'd better spread a bi