“Won’t they hear us—and club us?” said I.
“Not they! I’ve been in the palace before by night; I know where Fae Fae sleeps, and it’s no hard job to find her.”
“You do, do you!” thought I. Then O’Hara began to creep down the orange grove and, like some obsequious shadow, I followed.
Not a sound broke the primeval stillness as we curved round the small track that led to the main entrance of the palace. At that very moment a night bird, somewhere up in the mangroves, burst into song. It gave a sharp scream as we passed like shadows beneath the trees, and then flapped away. We both leapt back into the deeper gloom. Our hearts nearly stopped, for lo! the bushy head of some high chief suddenly poked out of the half-open gate at the main entrance. We watched that big mop-head and fierce-looking face turn to the right and left, peer into the moonlight a moment, then we saw it withdrawn from view.
“I’d like to give that cove one on his napper!” whispered O’Hara, with a levity which I thought considerably out of place at such a time. “I know him; it’s old thin-legs, the night sentinel. I’ve tried to bribe the old wretch, but ’twasn’t any go.”
“Oh!” said I, for the want of saying something better at such a moment. Indeed, the most poignant phrases that the English language can twist together could not have expressed all that I felt.
“What do you intend doing now?” said I.
“Why, I’m going to slip into the palace and see Fae Fae in her private chamber. She’ll soon come when she sees us.”
“Are you sure she won’t scream? Don’t you think it’s a bit unwise, in the night-time, like this?”
“Blimey ducks, no!” chuckled O’Hara. Thereupon I made up my mind to seize the blessed Queen herself, if O’Hara wished me to do so.