_Princess Star_
Dick could not imagine how the Princess could hear, ’way up in the air
so high; but in a minute a pretty, frowning face appeared, leaning out
over the window-sill. A sweet, rather cross, little voice—you could
hear every word quite clearly—said, “You bad Mudge! why did you not
come sooner?”
Then she caught sight of Dick, and gave a little scream. “Who’s that
with you?”
“Someone sent by Mother Goose to help Prince Humpty Dumpty,” said Mudge.
“Mother Goose, my future mother-in-law!” exclaimed the Princess, and
sighed. “I should like to see him closer,” she added, and was silent
for a moment, as though thinking. But in that moment something happened.
A sound of voices and tramping feet echoed around a corner of the
Palace, and the Princess suddenly pulled in her head, while Mudge
as promptly took to his heels. So Dick was left alone, for he was
too bewildered to run at first; and by the time that he had made
up his mind to try to escape, he was entirely surrounded by some
fierce-looking men-at-arms, all dressed in bright red.
“What are you doing here?” demanded the leader, ferociously.
“Stealing flowers from our tree?” suggested one of the others.
Dick did not know what to say. He hated to lie, but there was the
Princess to be thought of, and Humpty Dumpty, and Mother Goose, and
Meg, and Bab, and dozens of other considerations. So he decided not to
tell _quite_ all the truth.
“I—they are very pretty,” he admitted, hanging his head and feeling
very much ashamed; for his many faults had never included lying before.
“It is against the law, and you must go to prison,” declared the
soldier. “Probably the Wicked King, our master, will have you beheaded
without delay; and, for my part, I think that even that will be better
than you deserve!”
Dick felt so sad and angry at the thought of failure—to say nothing of
the danger that he was in—that he could have cried; only, being a boy,
of course he didn’t!
But he wished _hard_ for some idea to come to him that would show him
a way out of his trouble. And suddenly a big Dragon-Fly whizzed up to
him, apparently on its way to the green flowers on the tree overhead.
With a sudden impulse Dick whispered “Help me, dear, good, kind
Dragon-Fly!” as he had to the flowers.
The Dragon-Fly wheeled in its whirring flight, and flew close to his
lips.
“Tell Bizzybuzz, the Goblin,” murmured Dick; and the insect darted
swiftly away. Dick could not tell whether or no it had heard him or
would repeat his message, but he felt a trifle happier.
“Come on, Thief!” said the man-at-arms, pulling Dick along by the arm.
At this point the Princess stuck her head out of the turret window once
more.
“What have you there?” she asked very sweetly.
The men answered her most respectfully; for though she was a prisoner
in a turret of her father’s castle, they all looked up to her with
something approaching adoration,—something which, with all their fear,
they never gave her cruel father.
“This is a thief, your Highness,” said the head man in red, bowing very
low. “He was about to steal some of the flowers from the beautiful
tree that grows under your Highness’s window!”
“Why, the horrid little wretch!” exclaimed the Princess, pretending to
be extremely angry. “Just you bring him up to me! I should like to look
at any little boy who could be so terribly wicked!”
“We must take him to prison at once, your Highness,” protested the man.
But she persisted.
“I want to see him!” she said. “I’d like to box his wicked ears myself!
That lovely tree! Why, looking at it and counting its blooms every
morning is one of the few pleasures I have!” And she pretended to sob
bitterly. “Bring him up!” she cried again. “Bring him up, I say!”
“Oh, well!” said the man-at-arms, with a shrug of his shoulders. “Of
course, if your august Highness insists—” And Dick was taken into
the Palace by a side door, and marched up ever so many stairs to the
Princess’s room.
There they found, keeping guard, several men, who let them pass,
looking quite amazed. And so they came at last into the Princess Star’s
tower-prison.
The Princess Star was really a very pretty little princess, though she
did not look particularly cheerful nor even remarkably good-tempered;
and her room itself was a marvel of gorgeous disorder. Flowers and
jewels and splendid stuffs were flung about as though the Princess
had been venting her temper upon them. There was a parrot on a perch,
a yellow cat on a cushion, a big green lizard on the end of a gold
chain, a little silver cage of queer birds, and a big crystal basin
full of beautiful fishes of all sorts swimming about in rose-coloured
water.
In the centre of everything sat the Princess on a little gold stool
with three legs (for all the world like a milking-stool!), dressed in
some very magnificent robes and gems and with her crown somewhat awry.
When she saw Dick, she pretended to fly into a rage and to try to box
his ears; but finally she very cleverly pretended to calm down, and
declared that he wasn’t a bad-looking little boy—for a thief! And then
she said that she needed a page to look after her pets, and announced
that she would keep him. The head man-at-arms objected, of course,
saying that he must take the thief to prison to await the pleasure of
the Wicked King. But at that the Princess flew into another rage,—real,
this time,—and threw things at him—beginning with a jewelled hour-glass
and ending with a mandolin—until he was very glad to leave the royal
young lady’s apartments on any terms.
So they all backed away as fast as they possibly could, and shut the
door very tight behind them. And Dick was left alone with pretty,
bad-tempered, disorderly Princess Star.
“There!” she exclaimed, flinging herself into a sort of throne-like
chair that was made of silver and inlaid with gold. “Now we can talk
sense at last! Tell me at once who you are and why you are here!”
So Dick told her obediently, and she listened with the deepest
attention.
“You’re a dear little boy,” she said at last, “and you may sit on my
lap if you want to.”
Dick did not want to, for he thought it babyish; but he hated to seem
rude. So he accepted her invitation, and found that a Princess’s lap
was very much like other people’s; it reminded him a little too much of
his mother’s, and made him homesick. So he got down just as soon as he
could politely.
“And now,” said the Princess, “what are we to do next? I wish we knew
where the spell can be found that can move my poor Humpty Dumpty from
his dreadful place on the top of the city wall.”
“So do I—” Dick was beginning, when there was a sudden sound outside,
the door flew open, and they saw—
[Illustration]
XIII
“_Harness the Reindeer!_”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]