"Well, that"s all pretty straight and easy. n.o.body can say fairer nor that," meditated Bob Hetherington.
"Shut up!" said his chief; "who asked for your oar? I"ll knock the bloomin" nut off you if you don"t watch out. Blindfold the emissary of the enemy, and bring her before me into the inner court."
And with this peremptory command, Nipper Donnan disappeared.
But the order was more easily given than obeyed. For not only could the entire array of the Comanche Cowboys produce nothing even distantly resembling Indian silk (which at any rate was a counsel of perfection), but what was worse, their pockets were equally dest.i.tute of common domestic linen. Indeed the proceedings would have fallen through at this point had not the amba.s.sadress offered her own. This was knotted round her brows by Joe Craig, with the best intentions in the world.
Immediately after completing the arrangement, he stepped in front of Prissy and said, thrusting his fist below her nose, "Tell me if you see anything--mind, true as "Hope-you-may-Die!""
"I do see something, something very dirty," said Prissy, "but I can"t quite tell what it is."
"She _can_ see, boys," cried Joe indignantly, "it"s my hand."
Every boy recognised the description, and the handkerchief was once more adjusted with greater care and precision than before, so that it was only by the sense of smell that Prissy could judge of the proximity of Joe Craig"s fingers.
"Please let me carry my basket myself--I"ve got my best china tea-service in it--and then I will be sure that it won"t get broken."
A licentious soldiery was about to object, but a stern command issued unexpectedly from one of the arrow-slits through which their chief had been on the watch.
"Give the girl the basket! Do you hear--you?"
And in this manner Prissy entered the castle, guarded on either side by soldiers with fixed (wooden) bayonets. And at the inner and outer ports, the convoy was halted and asked for the pa.s.s-word.
"_Death!_" cried Joe Craig, at the pitch of his voice.
"_Vengeance!_" replied the sentry. "Pa.s.s, "_Death_"!"
At last Prissy felt the gra.s.s beneath her feet, and the handkerchief being slipped from her eyes, she found herself within the courtyard of the castle. The captain of the band sat before her with a red sash tied tightly about his waist. By his side swung a butcher"s steel, almost as long and twice as dangerous as a sword.
Prissy began her mission at once, to allow Captain Donnan no time to order her out again, or to put her into a dungeon, as he had done with Hugh John.
"I think we had better have tea first," she said. "Have you got a match-box?"
She could not have taken a better line. Nipper Donnan stepped down from his high horse at once. He put his hand into his pocket. "I have only fusees," he said grandly, "but perhaps they will do. You see regular smokers never use anything else."
"Oh yes, they will do perfectly," returned Prissy sweetly, "it is just to light the spirit-lamp. See how nicely it fits in. Isn"t it a beauty? I got that from father on my birthday. Wasn"t it nice of him?"
Nipper Donnan grunted. He never found any marked difference between his birthday and any other day. Nevertheless he stood by and a.s.sisted at the making of the tea, a process which interested him greatly.
"I shall need some more fresh spring water for so many cups," said Prissy, "I only brought the full of the kettle with me."
The chief slightly waved a haughty hand, which instantly impelled Joe Craig forward as if moved by a spring. "Bring some fresh water from the well!" he commanded.
Joe Craig took the tin dipper, and was marching off. Prissy looked distressed.
"What is it?" said the robber chief. Now Prissy did not want to be rude, but she had her feelings.
"Oh, please, Mr. Captain," she said, "his hands--I think he has perhaps been working----"
Nipper Donnan had no fine scruples, but he respected them in such an unknown quant.i.ty as this dainty little lady with the green trimmed sun-bonnet and the widely-opened eyes.
"Tracy, fetch the water, you lazy jaundiced toad!" he commanded. The sallow student rose unwillingly, and moved off with his face still bent upon the thrilling pages of "The Wild Boys of New York," which he held folded small in his hand for convenience of perusal.
Presently the tea being made, the white cloth was laid on the gra.s.s, and the entire company of the Smoutchy Boys crowded about, always excepting the sentinels at the east and west doors, who being on duty could not immediately partic.i.p.ate. The sheep"s-head-pie, the bread, the b.u.t.ter, the fruits were all set out in order, and the whole presented such an appearance as the inside of the Castle of Windy Standard had never seen through all its generations.
Prissy conducted herself precisely as if she had been dispensing afternoon tea to callers in the drawing-room, as, since her last birthday, her father had occasionally permitted her to do.
"Do you take sugar?" she asked, delicately poising a piece in the dolls" sugar-tongs, and smiling her most politefully conventional smile at Nipper Donnan.
The brigand chief had never been asked such a question before, and had no answer of the usual kind at hand. But he replied for all that.
"_Rather!_" he cried in a burst, "if the grocer"s not lookin"!"
"I mean in your tea! Do you take sugar in your tea?"
Prissy was still smiling.
Nipper appeared to acquiesce. Two k.n.o.bs of sugar were dropped in. The whipped cream out of the wide-mouthed bottle was spooned delicately on the top, and with a yet more charming smile the cup was pa.s.sed to him.
He held it between his finger and thumb, as an inquiring naturalist holds a rare beetle. Then he put it down on a low fragment of wall and looked at it.
"One lump or two?" queried Prissy again, graciously transferring her attentions to Joe Craig.
"Eh, what?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed that warrior. Prissy repeated her question.
"As many as I can get!" cried the boy.
So one by one the brigands were served, and the subdued look which rests upon a Sunday-school picnic at the hour of refreshment settled down upon them. The Smoutchy boy is bad and bold, but he does not like you to see him in the act of eating. His instinct is to get behind a wall, or into the thick of a copse and do it there. A similar feeling sends the sparrow with a larger crumb than the others into the seclusion of his nest among the ivy.
Nevertheless the bread and jam, the raisins, and the sheep"s-head-pie disappeared "like snow off a d.y.k.e." The wonder of the thimbleful cups, continually replenished, grew more and more surprising; and, winking slyly at each other the Smoutchies pa.s.sed them in with a touch of their caps to be filled and refilled again and again. Prissy kept the kettle beside her, out of which she poured the water brought by Timothy Tracy as she wanted it. The golden colour of the tea degenerated, but so long as a few drops of milk remained to mask the fraud from their eyes, the Smoutchies drank the warm water with equal relish.
"Besides it"s so much better for your nerves, you know!" said Prissy, putting her action upon a hygienic basis.
At first the boys had been inclined to s.n.a.t.c.h the viands from the table-cloth, and there was one footprint on the further edge. But the iron hand of Nipper Donnan knocked two or three intruders sprawling, and after that the eatables were distributed as patiently and exactly as at a Lord Mayor"s banquet.
"Please will you let that boy get up?--I think he must have been sat upon quite long enough now," said Prissy, who could not bear to listen to the uneasy groaning of the oppressed prisoner.
The chief granted the boon. The sitter and his victim came in and were regaled amicably from one plate. "Pieces" and full cups of tea were despatched to the distant sentinels, and finally the whole company was in the midst of washing up, when Prissy, who had been kneeling on the gra.s.s wiping saucers one by one, suddenly rose to her feet with a little cry.
"Oh, it is so dreadful--I _quite_ forgot!"
The Smoutchies stood open-mouthed, some holding dishes, some with belated pieces of pie, some only with their hands in their pockets, but all waiting eagerly for the revelation of the dreadful thing which their hostess had forgotten.
"Why, we forgot to say grace!" she cried--"well, anyway I am glad I remembered in time. We can say it now. Who is the youngest?"
The boys all looked guiltily at each other. Prissy picked out a small boy of stunted aspect, but whose face was old and wizened. He had just put a piece of tobacco into his mouth to take away the taste of the tea.
"You say it, little boy," she said pointedly, and shut her eyes for him to begin.