Part 15 (1/2)

”What does that matter? He _will_ be frightened out of his life; he's so young,” cried Erebus in a tone of acute distress, gazing after their receding friend with very anxious eyes. ”He's not like us; he won't cheek the keeper all the way like we should.”

”Oh, Wiggins has plenty of pluck,” said the Terror in a rea.s.suring tone.

”But he won't understand he's all right. He's only ten. And there's no saying how that beastly foreigner who shoots nightingales will bully him,” cried Erebus with unabated anxiety.

This was her womanly irrational conception of a Pomeranian Briton.

”Well, the sooner we go and fetch his father the sooner he'll be out of it,” said the Terror, making as if to mount his bicycle.

”No, no! That won't do at all!” cried Erebus fiercely. ”We've got to rescue him now--at once. We got him into the mess; and we've got to get him out of it. You've got to find a way.”

”It's all very well,” said the Terror, frowning deeply; and he took off his cap to wrestle more manfully with the problem.

Erebus faced him, frowning even more deeply.

Never had the Twins been so hopelessly at a loss.

Then the Terror said in his gloomiest tone: ”I can't see what we can do.”

”Oh, I'm going to get him out of it somehow!” cried Erebus in a furious desperation.

With that she mounted her bicycle and rode swiftly up the drive.

The Terror mounted, started after her, and stopped at the end of fifty yards. It had occurred to him that, after all, he was the only poacher of the three, the only one in real danger. As he leaned on his machine, watching his vanis.h.i.+ng sister, he ground his teeth. For all his natural serenity, inaction was in the highest degree repugnant to him.

Erebus reached Great Deeping Court but a few minutes after Wiggins and the keeper. She was about to ride on round the house, thinking that the keeper would, as befitted his station, enter it by the back door, when she saw Wiggins' bicycle standing against one of the pillars of the great porch. In a natural elation at having captured a poacher, and eager to display his prize without delay, the keeper had gone straight into the great hall.

Erebus dismounted and stood considering for perhaps half a minute; then she moved Wiggins' bicycle so that it was right to his hand if he came out, set her own bicycle against another of the pillars, but out of sight lest he should take it by mistake, walked up the steps, hammered the knocker firmly, and rang the bell. The moment the door opened she stepped quickly past the footman into the hall. The keeper sat on a chair facing her, and on a chair beside him sat Wiggins looking white and woebegone.

Erebus gazed at them with angry sparkling eyes, then she said sharply: ”What are you doing with my little brother?”

She adopted Wiggins with this suddenness in order to strengthen her position.

The keeper opened his eyes in some surprise at her uncompromising tone, but he said triumphantly:

”I caught 'im poachin'--”

”Stand up! What do you mean by speaking to me sitting down?” cried Erebus in her most imperative tone.

The keeper stood up with uncommon quickness and a sudden sheepish air: ”'E was poachin',” he said sulkily.

”He was not! A little boy like that!” cried Erebus scornfully.

”Anyways, 'e was aidin' an' abettin', an' I've brought 'im to Mr.

D'Arcy Rosynimer an' it's for 'im to say,” said the keeper stubbornly.

There came a faint click from the beautiful lips of Erebus, the gentle click by which the Twins called each other to attention. At the sound Wiggins, his face faintly flushed with hope, braced himself. Erebus measured the distance with the eye of an expert, just as there came into the farther end of the hall that large, flabby, pudding-faced young Pomeranian Briton, Mr. D'Arcy Rosenheimer.

”Where's the boacher?” he roared in an eager, angry voice, reverting in his emotion to the ancestral ”b.”