'But why do the guards obey her?' Philip asked.
'They're not our guards, of course,' the captain answered. 'They're strange soldiers that she got out of a book. She got the people to pull down the Hall of Justice by pretending there was fruit in the gigantic books it's built with. And when the book was opened these soldiers came marching out. The Sequani and the Aedui they call themselves. And when you've finished supper we ought to hold a council. There are a lot of us here. All sorts. Distinctions of rank are forgotten in times of public peril.'
Some twenty or thirty people presently gathered in that round room from whose windows Philip and Lucy had looked out when they were first imprisoned. There were indeed all sorts, match-servants, domino-men, soldiers, china-men, Mr. Noah's three sons and his wife, a pirate and a couple of sailors.
'What book,' Philip asked Lucy in an undertone, 'did she get these soldiers out of?'
'Caesar, I think,' said Lucy. 'And I'm afraid it was my fault. I remember telling her about the barbarians and the legions and things after father had told me—when she was my nurse, you know. She's very clever at thinking of horrid things to do, isn't she?'
The council talked for two hours, and nobody said anything worth mentioning. When every one was quite tired out, every one went to bed.
It was Philip who woke in the night in the grasp of a sudden idea.
'What is it?' asked Max, rousing himself from his warm bed at Philip's feet.
'I've thought of something,' said Philip in a low excited voice. 'I'm going to have a night attack.'
'Shall I wake the others?' asked Max, ever ready to oblige.