The Terrible Twins

by Edgar Jepson

She was almost sorry when they came at last to the foot of the knoll.

Also Erebus had hot cocoa ready for them; and after her tiring journey the princess found it grateful indeed. They sat for a while in a row before the glowing fire, talking of the Hartz Mountains, which the princess had visited. But soon the yawns which she could not repress showed her hosts how sleepy she was, and the Terror suggested that she should go to bed.

With true courtesy, the Twins had given her the best sleeping-cave to herself, but she displayed such a terrified reluctance to sleep in it alone, that her couch of bracken and her blankets were moved into the cave of Erebus. After the journey and the excitement she was not long falling into a dreamless sleep.

When she awoke next morning, she found the Terror gone to fetch milk. Erebus conducted her down to the pool for her morning bath. The princess did not like it (she had had no experience of cold baths) but under the eye of Erebus she could not shrink; and in she went. She came out shivering, but Erebus helped rub her to a warm glow, and she came to breakfast with such an appetite as she had never before in her life enjoyed.

The knoll was indeed the ideal camping-ground for the romantic; the caves with which it was honeycombed lent themselves to a score of games of adventure; and the princess soon found that she had been called to an active life. It began directly after breakfast with dish-washing; after that she was breathless for an hour in two excited games both of which meant running through the caves and round and over the knoll as hard as you could run and at short intervals yelling as loud as you could yell. After this they put on their bathing-dresses and disported themselves in the pool till it was time to set about the serious business of cooking the dinner, which they took soon after one o’clock.

The Terror kept a careful and protective eye on the princess, helping her, for the most part vigorously, to cover the ground at the required speed. Also he turned her out of the pool, to dry and dress, a full half-hour before he and Erebus left it. After dinner the princess was so sleepy that she could hardly keep her eyes open; and the Terror insisted that she should lie down for an hour. She protested that she did not want to rest, that she did not want to lose a moment of this glorious life; but presently she yielded and was soon asleep.

They were expecting Wiggins in the afternoon. But he could be admitted safely into the secret, since, once he knew that the princess had become Lady Rowington, he would be able with sufficient truthfulness to profess an entire ignorance of her whereabouts. Also he would be very useful, for he could bring them word if suspicion had fallen on them.

At about half past two he arrived, bringing a great tale of the excitement of the countryside at the kidnaping of the princess. So far its simple-minded inhabitants and the suite of the princess were content with the socialist explanation of her disappearance; and three counties round were being searched by active policemen on bicycles for some one who had seen a suspicious motor-car containing Socialists and a princess. It was the general belief that she had been chloroformed and abducted through her bedroom window.

With admirable gravity the Twins discussed with Wiggins the probabilities of their success and of the recovery of the princess, the routes by which the Socialists might have carried her off, and the towns in which the lair to which they had taken her might be. At the end of half an hour of it the princess came out of her cave, her eyes, very bright with sleep, blinking in the sunlight.

Wiggins cried out in surprise; and the Twins laughed joyfully.