Elfrida took the paper and looked at it, and her mouth dropped open. “If it’s true?” said she. “But it must be true!” The paper almost fell from her hand, for it was a bill from Gamage’s for three ships’ guns, a compass, and a half-dozen flags—and the bill was made out to Mr. R. D. Arden, 117, Laurie Grove, New Cross, London, S.E. On the other side was the pencilled record of the runs made by Kent the previous Thursday.
“I say,” said Elfrida, and was going on to say I don’t know what clever and interesting things, when she felt the fur coat creep and wriggle all through its soft length, and along its soft width, and no wriggle that ever was wriggled expressed so completely “Danger! danger! danger! You’d better get off while you can—while you can.” A quite violent ruffling of the fur round the neck of her coat said, as plain as it could speak, “Don’t stop to jaw. Go now—now—now!”
When you say a lady is a “true daughter of Eve” you mean that she is inquisitive. Elfrida was enough Eve’s daughter to scurry to the window and look out.
A thrill ran right down her backbone and ended in an empty feeling at the ends of her fingers and feet.
“Soldiers!” she cried, “And they’re after us—I know they are.”
“‘SOLDIERS!’ SHE CRIED, ‘AND THEY’RE AFTER US.’”
The fur coat knew it too, if knowledge can be expressed by wriggling.
“Oh, and they’re pulling up the drawbridge! What for?” said Edred, who had come to the window too. “And, I say, doesn’t the portcullis look guillotinish when it comes down like that?”
Through the window one looked straight down on to the drawbridge, and as the tower stuck out beyond the gate, its side window gave an excellent view of the slowly descending portcullis.