Part 24 (2/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”THE RETURN OF THE TWO SWIFT FOOTMEN.”]
”Well, what do you want?” he said gruffly. For with Nipper and his cla.s.s emotion or shamefacedness of any kind always in the first instance produces additional dourness.
Prissy smiled upon him--a glad, confident smile. She was the daughter of one war chief, the sister of another, and she knew that it is always best and simplest to treat only with princ.i.p.als.
”You know that I didn't come to spy or find out anything, don't you?”
she said; ”only I was so sorry to think you were fighting with each other, when the Bible tells us to love one another. Why can't we all be nice together? I'm sure Hugh John would if you would----”
”Gammon--this is our castle,” said Nipper Donnan sullenly, ”my father he says so. Everybody says so. Your father has no right to it.”
”Well, but--” replied Prissy, with woman's gentle wit avoiding all discussion of the bone of contention, ”I'm sure you would let us come here and have picnics and things. And you could come too, and play at soldiers and marching and drills--all without fighting to hurt.”
”Fighting is the best fun!” snarled Nipper; ”besides, 'twasn't us that begun it.”
”Then,” answered Prissy, ”wouldn't it be all the nicer of you if you were to stop first?”
But this Nipper Donnan could not be expected to understand. A diversion was caused at this moment by the return of the two swift footmen, with the culprit Nosie between them, doing the frog's march, and having his own experiences as to what arm-twisting meant.
”Cast him into the deepest dungeon beneath the castle moat!” thundered the brigand chief.
”Can't,” said the elder of the two captors, one Joe Craig, the son of the Carlisle carrier; ”can't--we couldn't get him out again if we did!”
”Well then,”--returned the great chief, swiftly deciding upon an alternative plan, as if he had thought about it from the first, ”chuck him down anywhere on the stones, and get Fat Sandy to sit on him.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”HYDRAULIC PRESSURE.”]
Joe Craig obediently saluted, and presently sundry moans and sounds of exhausted breath indicated that Nosie Cuthbertson was being subjected to hydraulic pressure by the unseen tormentor whom Nipper Donnan had called Fat Sandy. Prissy felt that nothing she could say would for the present lessen Master Nosie's griefs, so she went on to accomplish her purpose by other means.
”If you please, Mr. Captain,” she said politely, ”I thought you would like to taste our nice sheep's-head-pie. Janet makes it all out of her own head. Besides, there are some dee-licious fruits which I have brought you; and if you will let me come in, I will make you some lovely tea?”
Nipper Donnan considered, and at last shook his head.
”I don't know,” he said, ”'tisn't regular. How do we know that you aren't a spy?”
”You could bind my eyes with a napkin, and----”
”That's the thing!” cried several of Nipper's followers, who scented something to eat, and who knew that the commissariat was the weak point in the defences of the Castle of Windy Standard under the Consuls.h.i.+p of Donnan.
”Well,” said the chief, ”that's according to rule. Here, Timothy Tracy, tell us if that is all right.”
Whereupon uprose Timothy Tracy, a long lank boy with yellowish hair and dull lack-l.u.s.tre eyes, out of a niche in the wall and unfolded a number of ”The Wild Boys of New York.” He rustled the flaccid, ill-conditioned leaves and found the place.
”'Then Bendigo Bill went to the gateway of the stockade to interview the emissary of the besiegers. With keen unerring eyes he examined his credentials, and finding them correct, he took from the breast of his fringed buckskin hunting-dress a handkerchief of fine Indian silk, and with it he swathed the eyes of the amba.s.sador. Then taking the envoy by the hand he led him past the impregnable defences of the Comanche Cowboys into the presence of their haughty chief, who was seated with the fair Luluja beside him, holding her delicate hand, and inhaling the fragrance of a choice Havanna cigar through his n.o.ble aquiline nose.'
”That's all it says,” said Timothy Tracy, succinctly, and straightway curled himself up again to resume his own story at the place where he had left it off.
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