The Queen herself was a woman apparently between forty and fifty; bearing a strong resemblance to her daughter, but of a fairer complexion, her hair and eyes being also of a lighter brown. She was picturesquely, even richly, dressed, in a kind of long tunic of scarlet cloth trimmed with swan's-down, over which she wore a robe of leopard skin; slippers and buskins of the same material as her gown, but thickly set with coloured beads and spangles. A tiara, similarly ornamented and surmounted by ostrich feathers, completed her attire. She greeted her visitors as they moved up to her chair with graceful courtesy. "You are English, I am told?" she said, interrogatively; "if so, my countrymen, and the first I have beheld for six and twenty years. But I have not forgotten the dear old language, in which, indeed, I and my daughter always converse, and it will delight us both to hear it from other lips beside our own." "Yes, madam," answered De Walden, "we are English--my three younger companions entirely so; while I am of English descent and English parentage on the father's side. We thank you for your kind reception of us, which, it is needless to say, is most welcome after the toils and dangers we have undergone." "Your appearance is that of a missionary," rejoined the Queen. "May I ask if that is the case, and if so, what is your name, and where have you of late been residing?" "I am a preacher of the Gospel," said De Walden, "and my name is Theodore De Walden. I have been for many years in different parts of South Africa, both to the north and west of this land." "I have heard of you," said the Queen, "and have long been desirous of meeting with you, or some other of your calling. I myself am by birth a member of the English Church, and still account myself one, though so long cut off from its ministrations." "The English Church--indeed!" exclaimed Warley. "May we presume to ask how--how--" "How it comes that an English Churchwoman should be living in this wild country, so far from her native land, and the ruler of a barbarian tribe--that is what you would ask," said the Queen, smiling. "Well, of course I knew you would wish to learn the particulars of my strange history, and it is perhaps as agreeable to me to relate, as it is to you to hear it. Seat yourselves"--she beckoned to the attendants to bring forward chairs, as she spoke--"and I will tell you the whole tale."