Before the vessel was unmoored, Miss Petty came up to Robin in a state of rapturous excitement.
"We shall have a delightful voyage down the Red Sea," she cried, "if only we can escape being fried alive on the way. Only imagine! We have a real princess on board; she and her suite had two whole omnibuses to themselves (which caused our terrible jamming in the third), and now they take up all the best cabins."
"Hardly the thing to make our voyage more delightful, Miss Petty," laughed Robin. "I confess that I was not delighted to find that Bolton was to share with Harold and myself a hole in which we have hardly room to turn round. And that in such grilling weather."
"Mrs. Evendale is squeezed into our cabin," said Miss Petty, fanning herself vigorously as she spoke; "but of course every one must make room for a real princess. Her name is—let me think—Principessa Lucrezia di—di—Pelipatti—or something like that, it is almost too long a name to remember. She's very charming—of course."
"How do you know? Have you already made her acquaintance?" asked Robin.
"Not yet—not yet; but of course during the voyage we shall meet often," said Miss Petty, who had already built a tall castle of cards or cobwebs on the strength of her coming intimacy with a real princess. "Oh! What splendid jewels she wears! How her diamonds flash in the sun! Principessa Lucrezia, has, I believe, more rings than fingers, and such a necklace—of course all pure gold! They say that the Princess is amazingly rich."
It was no small disappointment to Miss Petty to find, after they started on the voyage, that the Principessa di Peliperiti did not condescend to dine with the other passengers, but was served apart from the rest. The obsequious captain, proud of his freight, gave the best of everything to the grand lady and her companions, leaving the other passengers to fare very badly indeed. Some of the English travellers ventured to express a wish that the Princess had chosen any other ship than that in which they were sailing, or that they themselves had embarked in some other vessel.
"I don't think much of our sleek captain," observed Bolton to Harold in the evening; "he's rather like a fawning courtier than a seaman. I doubt whether he knows how to handle his ship or manage his ruffian-like crew."
"I felt more confidence in our bluff old Gump," remarked Harold.
"As for the elderly Princess, she's cracked, simply cracked," said Bolton. "She's an exaggerated Miss Petty,—Princess Pettier let us call her, for I can never remember her name. I hear that she is as full of fancies as a sieve is of holes. She has had a training establishment for cats and a hospital for dogs; I'm not sure whether rats had not their turn,—for nothing pleases Her Highness for long. The Princess's present fancy is to be a great traveller. She has been to London, Paris, Vienna, Cairo, and I know not how many cities besides. They say that she wished to go to Mecca, but there were difficulties in the way, such as the probability of having her throat cut. The Princess is about to 'do' India, and be lionised in Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta; then, if the travelling mania be not superseded by one for educating elephants or taming snakes, she will probably pass on to China or Japan."