PUT TO THE QUESTION.
In the chaste retirement of his sick room the Field-Marshal had just
reached this conclusion, when he heard a noise in the hall. There was
a sound of the gruff unmirthful voices of grown-ups, a scuffling of
feet, a planting of whips and walking-sticks on the zinc-bottomed
hall-stand, and then, after a pause which meant drinks, heavy
footsteps in the passage which led to the hero's chamber.
Hugh John snatched up Sambo Soulis and thrust him deep beneath the
bedclothes, where he could readily push him over the end with his
toes, if it should chance to be "the doctor-beast" come to uncover him
and "fool with the bandages." I have said enough to show that the
General was not only frankly savage in sentiment, but resembled his
great imperial namesake in being grateful only when it suited him.
Before General Napoleon had his toes fairly settled over the back of
Sambo Soulis' neck, so as to be able to remove him out of harm's way
on any sudden alarm, the door opened and his father came in, ushering
two men, the first of whom came forward to the bedside in an easy,
kindly manner, and held out his hand.
"Do you know me?" he said, giving Hugh John's second sorest hand such
a squeeze that the wounded hero was glad it was not the very sorest
one.
"Yes," replied the hero promptly, "you are Sammy Carter's father. I
can jolly well lick----"
"Hugh John," interrupted his father severely, "remember what you are
saying to Mr. Davenant Carter."
"Well, anyway, I _can_ lick Sammy Carter till he's dumb-sick!"
muttered the General between his teeth, as he avoided the three pairs
of eyes that were turned upon him.
"Oh, let him say just what he likes!" said Mr. Davenant Carter
jovially. "Sammy is the better of being licked, if that is what the
boy was going to say. I sometimes try my hand at it myself with some
success."
The other man who had come in with Mr. Smith was a thick-set fellow of
middle height, with a curious air of being dressed up in somebody
else's clothes. Yet they fitted him very well. He wore on his face (in
addition to a slight moustache) an expression which somehow made Hugh
John think guiltily of all the orchards he had ever visited along
with Toady Lion and Sammy Carter's sister Cissy, who was "no end of a
nice girl" in Hugh John's estimation.
"This, Hugh," said his father, with a little wave of his hand, "is Mr.
Mant, the Chief Constable of the county. Mr. Carter and he have come
to ask you a few questions, which you will answer at once."
"I won't be dasht-mean!" muttered Napoleon Smith to himself.
"What's that?" ejaculated Mr. Smith, catching the echo of his son's
rumble of dissent.
"Only my leg that hurted," said the hypocritical hero of battles.
"Don't you think we should have the other children here?" said Mr.
Chief Constable Mant, speaking for the first time in a gruff,
move-on-there voice.
"Certainly," assented Mr. Smith, going to the door. "Janet!"
"Yes, sir!"
The answer came from immediately behind the door.
The Field-Marshal's brow darkened, or rather it would have done so if
there had been no white bandages over it. This is the correct
expression anyhow--though ordinary brows but seldom behave in this
manner.
"Prissy's all right," he thought to himself, "but if that little fool
Toady Lion----"
And he clenched his second sorest hand under the clothes, and kicked
Sambo Soulis to the foot of the bed in a way which augured but little
mercy to Sir Toady Lion if, after all his training, he should turn
out "dasht-mean" in the hour of trial.
Presently the other two children were pushed in at the door, Toady
Lion trying a bolt at the last moment, which Janet Sheepshanks easily
foiled by catching at the slack of his trousers behind, while Prissy
stood holding her hands primly as if in Sunday-school class. Both
afforded to the critical eye of Hugh John complete evidence that they
had only just escaped from the Greater Pain of the comb and soaped
flannel-cloth of Janet Sheepshanks. Prissy's curls were still wet and
smoothed out, and Toady Lion was trying in vain to rub the yellow soap
out of his eyes.
So at the headquarters of its general, the army of Windy Standard
formed up. Sir Toady Lion wished to get within supporting distance of
Prissy, and accordingly kept snuggling nearer all the time, so that he
could get a furtive hold of her skirts at awkward places in the
examination. This he could do the more easily that General
Field-Marshal Smith was prevented by the bandages over his right eye,
and also by the projecting edges of the pillow, from seeing Toady
Lion's left hand.
"Now, Priscilla," began her father, "tell Mr. Davenant Carter and Mr.
Mant what happened in the castle, and the names of any of the bad boys
who stole your pet lamb."
"Wasn't no lamb--Donald was a sheep, and he could fight," began Toady
Lion, without relevance, but with his usual eagerness to hear the
sound of his own piping voice. In his zeal he took a step forward and
so brought himself on the level of the eye of his general, who from
the pillow darted upon him a look so freezing that Sir Toady Lion
instantly fell back into the ranks, and clutched Prissy's skirt with
such energy as almost to stagger her severe deportment.
"Now," said the Chief Constable of Bordershire, "tell me what were the
names of the assailants."
He was listening to the tale as told by Prissy with his note-book
ready in his hand, occasionally biting at the butt of the pencil, and
anon wetting the lead in his mouth, under the mistaken idea that by so
doing he improved its writing qualities.
"I think," began Prissy, "that they were----"
"_A-chew!_" came from the bed and from under the bandages with a
sudden burst of sound. Field-Marshal Napoleon Smith had sneezed. That
was all.
But Prissy started. She knew what it meant. It was the well-known
signal not to commit herself under examination.
Her father looked round at the open windows.
"Are you catching cold with the draught, Hugh John?" he asked kindly.
"I think I have a little cold," said the wily General, who did not
wish all the windows to be promptly shut.
"Don't know all their names, but the one that hurted me was----" began
Toady Lion.
But who the villain was will never be known, for at that moment the
bedclothes became violently disturbed immediately in front of Sir
Toady Lion's nose. A fearful black countenance nodded once at him and
disappeared.
"Black Sambo!" gasped Toady Lion, awed by the terrible appearance, and
falling back from the place where the wizard had so suddenly appeared.
"What did I understand you to say, little boy?" said Mr. Mant, with
his pencil on his book.
"Ow--it was Black Sambo!" Toady Lion almost screamed. Mr. Mant gravely
noted the fact.
"What in the world does he mean?" asked Mr. Mant, casting his eyes
searchingly from Prissy to General Napoleon and back again.
"He means 'Black Sambo'!" said Prissy, devoting herself strictly to
facts, and leaving the Chief Constable to his proper business of
interpreting them.
"What is his other name?" said Mr. Mant.
"Soulis!" said General Smith from the bed.
The three gentlemen looked at each other, smiled, and shook their
heads.
"What did I tell you?" said Mr. Davenant Carter. "Try as I will, I
cannot get the simplest thing out of my Sammy and Cissy if they don't
choose to tell."
Nevertheless Mr. Smith, being a sanguine man and with little
experience of children, tried again.
"There is no black boy in the neighbourhood," said Mr. Smith severely;
"now tell the truth, children--at once, when I bid you!"
He uttered the last words in a loud and commanding tone.
"Us is telling the troof, father dear," said Toady Lion, in the
"coaxy-woaxy" voice which he used when he wanted marmalade from Janet
or a ride on the saddle from Mr. Picton Smith.
"Perhaps the boy had blackened his face to deceive the eye," suggested
Mr. Mant, with the air of one familiar from infancy with the tricks
and devices of the evil-minded of all ages.
"Was the ringleader's face blackened?--Answer at once!" said Mr. Smith
sternly.
The General extracted his bruised and battered right hand from under
the clothes and looked at it.
"I think so," he said, "leastways some has come off on my knuckles!"
Mr. Davenant Carter burst into a peal of jovial mirth.
"Didn't I tell you?--It isn't a bit of use badgering children when
they don't want to tell. Let's go over to the castle."
And with that the three gentlemen went out, while Napoleon Smith,
Prissy, and Sir Toady Lion were left alone.
The General beckoned them to his bedside with his nose--quite an easy
thing to do if you have the right kind of nose, which Hugh John had.
"Now look here," he said, "if you'd told, I'd have jolly well
flattened you when I got up. 'Tisn't our business to tell p'leecemen
things."
"That wasn't a p'leeceman," said Sir Toady Lion, "hadn't no shiny
buttons."
"That's the worst kind," said the General in a low, hissing whisper;
"all the same you stood to it like bricks, and now I'm going to get
well and begin on the campaign at once."
"Don't you be greedy-teeth and eat it all yourself!" interjected
Toady Lion, who thought that the campaign was something to eat, and
that it sounded good.
"What are you going to do?" said Prissy, who had a great belief in the
executive ability of her brother.
"I know their secret hold," said General-Field-Marshal Smith grandly,
"and in the hour of their fancied security we will fall upon them
and----"
"And what?" gasped Prissy and Toady Lion together, awaiting the
revelation of the horror.
"Destroy them!" said General Smith, in a tone which was felt by all
parties to be final.
He laid himself back on his pillow and motioned them haughtily away.
Prissy and Sir Toady Lion retreated on tiptoe, lest Janet should catch
them and send them to the parlour--Prissy to read her chapter, and her
brother along with her to keep him out of mischief.
And so the great soldier was left to his meditations in the darkened
hospital chamber.