CHAPTER 29
hris put down his spyglass and the two boys, hidden on the piny knoll, watched the procession out of sight.
"I'm supposed to take something from her," Chris said with his eyes sparkling, "but I know now what I'm going to give her back in return. I feel sort of sorry for that girl," he added thoughtfully.
"What're we going to do, Chris?" Amos wanted to know. "What-all comes next, and have we some more of those dates?"
Chris passed him some. "We have to wait until dusk anyway," he said, his voice abstracted, "and by the look of the light that won't be long."
The piny knoll was steep and rocky and only two adventurous boys would ever have reached the top. Too precipitous on which to build houses, it rose far above the surrounding roofs of Peking. The green and scarlet of curved tiles spread under the boys' sight like a curling sea. Before them, stretched out in long angular wings to right and left, swept the palace walls.
Listening and watching, the boys gathered by the silver trumpet notes that the Princess and her retinue had re-entered the palace walls by another gate.