Worse than all, Hugh John had tried to keep Sambo in his rabbit-box.

But not only did he utterly fail to put his "fearful head, crowned with a red night-cap" over the edge of the hutch at the proper time--as, had he been of respectable parentage, he would not have failed to do, but, in addition, he developed in his close quarters an animal odour so pungent and unprofitable that Janet Sheepshanks refused to admit him into the store-cupboard till he had been thoroughly fumigated and disinfected. So for a whole week Sambo Soulis swung ignominiously by the neck from the clothes line, and Hugh John went about in fear of the questioning of the children or of the confiscation by his father of his well-beloved but somewhat unsatisfactory familiar spirit.

It was in order to consult him on a critical point of doctrine and practice that Hugh John had now sent for Sambo Soulis.

He propped him up before him against a pillow, on which he sat bent forward at an acute angle from the hips, as if ready to pounce upon his master and rend him to pieces so soon as the catechism should be over.

"Look here," said General-Field-Marshal Smith to the oracle, "supposing the governor tells me to split on Nipper Donnan, the butcher boy, will it be dasht-mean if I do?"

Sambo Soulis, being disturbed by the delicacy of the question or perhaps by the wriggling of Hugh John upon his pillow, only lurched drivellingly forward.

"Sit up and answer," cried his master, "or else I'll hike you out of that pretty quick, for a silly old owl!"

And with his least bandaged hand he gave Sambo a sound cuff on the side of his venerable battered head, before propping him up at a new angle with his chin on his knees.

"Now speak up, Soulis," said General Smith; "I ask you would it be dasht-mean?"

The oracle was understood to joggle his chin and goggle his eyes. He certainly did the latter.

"I thought so," said Soulis' master, as is usual in such cases, interpreting the reply oracular according to his liking. "But look here, how are we to get back Donald unless we split? Would it not be all right to split just to get Donald back?"

Sambo Soulis waggled his head again. This time his master looked a little more serious.

"I suppose you are right," he said pensively, "but if it would be dasht-mean to split, we must just try to get him back ourselves--that is, if the beasts have not cut his throat, as they said they would."

CHAPTER IX.

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 pa.s.sage which led to the hero's chamber.

Hugh John s.n.a.t.c.hed 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?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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," a.s.sented 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 cla.s.s. 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 a.s.sailants."

He was listening to the tale as told by Prissy with his note-book ready in his hand, occasionally biting at the b.u.t.t 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.