What should she do? The danger was extreme, the necessity of immediate action imminent, the need of perfect self-control absolute! There was Pitapat flitting about the bed in momentary danger of looking under it! If she should their lives would not be worth an instant's purchase! Their throats would be cut before they should utter a second scream! It was necessary, therefore, to call Pitapat away from the bed, where her presence was as dangerous as the proximity of a lighted candle to an open powder barrel!
But how to trust her voice to do this? A single quaver in her tones would betray her consciousness of their presence to the lurking robbers and prove instantly fatal!
Happily Capitola's pride in her own courage came to her aid.
"Is it possible," she said to herself, "that after all I am a coward and have not even nerve and will enough to command the tones of my own voice? Fie on it! Cowardice is worse than death!"
And summoning all her resolution she spoke up, glibly:
"Patty, come here and unhook my dress."
"Yes, miss, I will just as soon as I get your slippers from unnerneaf of de bed!"
"I don't want them! Come here this minute and unhook my dress—I can't breathe! Plague take these country dress-makers—they think the tighter they screw one up the more fashionable they make one appear! Come, I say, and set my lungs at liberty."
"Yes, miss, in one minute," said Pitapat; and to Capitola's unspeakable horror the little maid stooped down and felt along under the side of the bed, from the head post to the foot post, until she put her hands upon the slippers and brought them forth! Providentially, the poor little wretch had not for an instant put her stupid head under the bed, or used her eyes in the search—that was all that saved them from instant massacre!
"Here dey is, Caterpillar! I knows how yer foots mus' be as much out of breaf wid yer tight gaiters as your waist is long of yer tight dress."