‘Like Joan of Arc, and Philippa who sucked the poison out of the burgesses’ keys at Calais.’
‘And if we don’t put the stuff in the right place, or the leopard doesn’t take any notice of it, they’ll just say we were disobedient.’
‘And suppose we meet the leopard face to face?’
‘It’s a tame leopard,’ said Caroline in a faltering voice.
‘Oh, I don’t want to go. I really am frightened. I don’t mind owning up. I am. I’m so frightened I think we ought to go. I don’t want to so dreadfully, that I’m sure it’s right for me to go. But I wish you and Charles would stay here. Suppose the leopard came over the wall and there was no one here to cope with it?’
She was very pale and she trembled. And when the others, without hesitation, said, ‘Not much, we don’t!’ she certainly breathed more easily.
‘Come on, then,’ she said. ‘We’ll strew a little here because of the gardeners. Oh no, of course the roots will make it all safe here. The gate’s locked; we must go through the secret passage and then creep through the stable-yard and out along the garden wall, so that the Wilmington doesn’t see us. And then out by the deserted lodge.’