Part 10 (1/2)

'How do you know?' Dido tried to sound calm about it, but she had a nasty crawling sensation down her backbone.

'Everyone know. Nemine dissentientae. Everyone say.'

'Everyone say.' Despite her fear, Dido could not help feeling impatient too the girl's excited whisper and staring eyes made what she said seem less, not more, believable. 'Who says?'

'Many, many people.'

'Have you ever seen an Auroc?'

'Jeeminy! No me!' For the first time, the chambermaid looked cheerful. 'When I am five my mater and pater send me work in silver-mines. No Aurocs there! I stay work underground till I am fifteen. Work in silver-mines is not nice ' she exhibited her hands and arms, blackened and scarred from heavy work 'but is better than Aurocs.'

'Young 'uns of five work in the mines?'

The girl nodded.

'Many, many! Safe there if no get squashed by truck.'

'How many get squashed by truck?'

The girl shrugged. 'Some. Suum cuique periculum. Danger anywhere.'

Here the conversation was interrupted by a melancholy mew. It seemed to come from under the bed.

'That's funny,' said Dido. 'Everywhere I go, I keep hearing cats. Thought I heard one all night. ..'

She knelt down to retrieve her fallen tiara, and found herself looking into a pair of desperate golden eyes.

'Well I'll be bothered! It's another like Dora. Where the blue blazes do they all come from? Well, step along out then; no sense lurking in under there!' said Dido, and put down the plate with the gristly end of the beefsteak.

In four famished bites the cat had demolished the unappetising fragment, and then eagerly licked out the peppery stew-bowl.

'Ay ay ay!' whispered the chambermaid, watching this with starting eyes. 'Old Grandmother Sul herself be watching over you, gringo puella!'

'Who? Who is Grandmother Sul?'

The girl, without answering, bent over the cat, which was still engaged in pus.h.i.+ng the soup-bowl over the cactus-matting, and deftly twitched out a long, silvery whisker from each cheek.

'What d'you do that to the poor thing for?'

But the chambermaid, knotting and twisting the whiskers together, plaited them into a loop and slipped it over Dido's index finger. 'There! You keep on under glove, not nohow take off, maybe you safe. Maybe not! c.u.m grano salis ' And, making the figure-eight sign again, she s.n.a.t.c.hed up the dishes and ran from the room.

'Humph! What'll we do with you, puss, eh? Poor thing, you're still half starved. Ribs like railings. Well, what do you know you got a collar too? And another page from that pesky dictionary? New c.u.mbria,' muttered Dido, detaching the little packet, 'ain't half full of eddicated cats!'

This cat's page, after informing Dido that a cough was a convulsion of the lungs, vellicated by some serosity, had another message in dark-brown ink.

'For mercy's sake help me. Only air for 3 days, Elen.'

Dido studied this appeal with compressed lips and knitted brow, then, as a double thump sounded on the door, tucked it into one of her white elbow-length gloves.

'Miss Twite? Are you ready?' came Multiple's voice. 'The captain is calling for you!'

'I'm a-coming, I'm a-coming,' said Dido hastily. 'Tell His Whiskers to keep calm.'

And, hitching up her draperies of silver-spangled mull, she opened the door.

'Reckon you'll have to help me downstairs, though, Mr Mully, or I'm liable to go tail-over-tip.'

'Very proper,' approved Captain Hughes at the foot of the stairs, observing Dido's cautious descent, a.s.sisted by the mids.h.i.+pman. 'Now you look just as you ought! Mind those skirts! I have a carriage waiting.'

He wrapped a shawl of white vicuna wool round Dido and put her in the carriage, where Mr Windward was already seated, looking stiff and uncomfortable. Both the captain and his first lieutenant were rigged up very fine in full-dress uniform, with knee-breeches, gold-laced jackets, epaulettes, c.o.c.ked hats, feathers and swords, which clanked a great deal and tended to trip the wearers.

'Glad J ain't coming,' murmured Mr Multiple with a grin, pa.s.sing Dido her fan.

'Keep an eye on Mr Holy! And feed the cat in my room!' she called, just before the footman slammed the door.

6.

The short distance between the Sydney Hotel and the revolving palace on its island was swiftly accomplished, and the carriage drew up before a flight of black marble steps, flanked, on either side, by three grey-clad, silver-plumed sentries. The coachman opened the door, Dido was lifted out, and the small party from H. M. S. Thrush ascended the steps.

'Oops!' said Dido. 'There ain't no front door.'

'I reckon we have to wait here till it comes round,' said Lieutenant Windward.

'Vexatious!' muttered the captain. 'It is hardly dignified to be obliged to stand on the doorstep like pet.i.tioners!'

The rotating silver building had its back to them, and they were forced to wait five or six minutes until the entrance slowly crept round to where they were standing. Meanwhile Dido glumly studied her reflection in the glistening walls and hoped that the palace was not full of Aurocs; in her long skirts, she thought, it would be very hard to give them the slip.

'Does the building come to a stop so that we may enter?' Captain Hughes asked one of the sentries. The man shook his head, and laid a finger on his lips. Irritably the captain put his question to another sentry, who made the same gesture.

'I fancy they are all deaf-and-dumb,' murmured the lieutenant in an undertone. He s.h.i.+vered a little. All of Bath was cold, but a particularly icy wind seemed to whistle round the palace. Then he added, 'Here comes the entrance, sir and I don't believe it is going to stop. We had best lose no time, or we shall have another ten minutes to wait while the plaguy thing takes another turn.'

'Dem'd ridiculous arrangement!' grumbled Captain Hughes. However, pressing his lips together, he strode into one quadrant of the revolving door as it came opposite him, calling over his shoulder as he did so, 'Step lively, Miss Twite! Do as I do!'

Dido skipped after him into the next quadrant, hitching up her skirts and losing a portion of her egret's-plume fan, which caught in the door and snapped off. Better that than my finger, she thought. This twirling door don't half buzz round quick! It's like the giddy-go-round at the Battersea Fun-fair.

Lieutenant Windward just had time to follow Dido before the whole entrance moved out of reach.

'It is really a capital notion,' he remarked as he emerged on the inside. 'It means the queen never has more than about three visitors at one time. I wonder what motive power causes it to revolve?'

'Maybe heat from Mount Damyake,' suggested Dido. 'Like the old cove at the Baths was telling us. Praps that's what drives the whole twiddledum palace round; and that's why folk reckon the queen's using up too much steam.'

The lieutenant looked at her with surprise, and a touch of respect.

'Well thought, young 'un! I believe you may have hit the nail on the head.'

Captain Hughes was handing his credentials a scroll tied with red ribbon to a bearded white-robed official, who beckoned the visitors forward.