n he had
communicated this fact to me by signs, I beckoned to him to return to my
side, which he did. Denviers, however, remained where he had gone, and
this circumstance, slight as it was, led a little later on to a most
unexpected result. The silence which just before we had observed among
the Dhahs occurred again, and watching narrowly the brushwood we saw
emerge from it the one whom they were eagerly expecting. As our eyes
rested upon this last comer we were indeed startled, for before us was
the Queen of the Dhahs, and we recognised in that moment that the rumour
concerning her was true!

[Illustration: PROSTRATING HIMSELF BEFORE HER.]

II.

"She comes! Margarita!" burst from the lips of every assembled Dhah, as
the queen slowly advanced and passed between her subjects, who lined the
path leading to the tent. As she moved amid them they bent low, while
here and there a warrior Dhah pressed with his lips her trailing garment
as she passed. Reaching the tent the queen turned and faced the excited
throng of subjects grouped round it, and then we saw more distinctly her
features and the attire which she wore.

The age of the queen was apparently less than twenty, her clear, fair
skin forcibly contrasting with the dark complexion of her subjects, whom
she alone resembled in the colour of the soft, full eyes with which she
glanced upon them. A look almost of sadness overshadowed her face, which
all the adulation which she received from her subjects could not
entirely banish. Her form, which was above the medium height, was clad
in a flowing robe of a wonderfully soft and silky-looking material,
woven possibly, we thought, from the inner bark of some tree. Its loose
folds were bare of ornament, save that the queen wore a girdle over it
thickly interwoven with pearls as white as those of Manaar, of which a
profuse number also braided her light flowing hair, meshes of which
partly concealed her forehead. When the queen stood in silence before
her subjects, after the greeting which they had given her subsided,
there issued from among the Dhahs that one whom first we saw in the
forest. Prostrating himself before her he afterwards rose, and, having
bent low his head, began:--

"Margarita, white queen of the dusky race whose habitation is the
pathless forest, hail! Here, upon the border which limits thy domains,
we pledge anew to thee the promise of fealty, of which the crimson star
upon our foreheads is the token. By i