But all was still—still as the inside of a palm-house, which, as no doubt you know, is very much quieter than most of the few quiet places in this noisy world.
The four fugitives let their breaths go cautiously, and again held them. And still the silence wrapped them round, thick and unbroken as the darkness in which they stood.
‘It’s all right,’ whispered Caroline at last. ‘Light up.’
Fortunately, each silver candlestick had its box of safety-matches in a silver holder fastened to its handle by a silver chain. This does happen in really well-managed houses. The candles were lighted.
‘We are saved,’ said Charlotte dramatically.
‘You came up like a mouse,’ said Caroline to Rupert,—‘a quiet mouse.’
It was then seen that Rupert’s boots were not on his feet, but in his hand, very muddy, and tied together by frayed boot-laces.
‘I took them off,’ he explained, ‘when I got into your park. My feet hurt so, and the grass was so soft and jolly. Oh, I am so tired—and hungry!’ His voice broke a little, and if he had not been a boy I think he would have cried.
‘Get on to the bed,’ said Charlotte, with eager friendliness, ‘and lie down. You be a wounded warrior and we’ll be an Arab oasis that you’ve come to. That’s the tent of the sheikh,’ she added, as Charles gave the weary Rupert a ‘leg up’ and landed him among the billows of the vast feather-bed. ‘Repose there, weary but honoured stranger. Though but humble Arabs, we are hospitable to strangers. We will go and slay a desert deer for you.’