"They are not on the table," explained the Prince. "They have been marching since yesterday morning, and they are on the road to my fairy palace." He then began to station his soldiers on the battlements of the two lofty towers.
"I suppose you think your wooden soldiers are real, too!" laughed the Prime Minister's daughter.
"Hush!" whispered the Prince. "If you speak so loud, they will hear you, and it would never do for them to know that you called them wooden. Anything might happen to you if you made them really angry!"
"You are only talking nonsense," said Dimples, which was what she always said when she did not understand what the Prince meant. At the same time she could not help being struck by the look on the face of the soldier that Prince Picotee had just picked up. It was the captain of the little regiment; and as the Prince placed him at the post of danger on the bottom brick of all, she felt sure that she saw a flush of anger on his painted wooden cheeks and a gleam of mischief in his round black eyes. "He is only a toy soldier," said Dimples, tossing her head; but she did not say it aloud, and it is certain that she felt a little uncomfortable, all the rest of that day, about the look on the captain's face.
Now, Dimples had come to stay with the Prince for a few days, and it happened that the room in which she slept was next to the royal nursery; and right in the middle of the night—which, as every one knows, is the time for wymps and fairies to be about—she awoke suddenly with a most unpleasant start. There, by the side of her bed, stood one of the Prince's wooden soldiers, shouldering his wooden gun as though he had never done anything else for the whole of his life,—which was certainly the truth,—and holding himself just for all the world as though he were glued together. He was certainly a most military-looking soldier, and if Dimples had not been a particularly brave little girl, she might have been decidedly frightened.
"What do you want?" she asked, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.
"Follow me. Prince's palace. Captain's orders," said the little soldier, in three jerks; and he turned round and marched stiffly towards the door. His tone was hard; but then, of course, his voice, like everything else about him, was made of wood. Dimples made no fuss about obeying him, for she was always ready for an adventure; so out of bed she jumped without any more ado, and followed him into the next room. It took them several minutes to get there, because the soldier walked so very slowly; but this, again, was not surprising, for people with wooden legs cannot be expected to walk as fast as ordinary folk.
When they reached the nursery, Dimples gave a cry of surprise. It was evident that the Prince's palace had sprung upwards since the afternoon, for the two towers were now far above her head, while as for the drawbridge, by the time she had crossed it and mounted the magnificent flight of steps, she found herself quite out of breath. "Perhaps it is a real palace, after all," she said doubtfully.
"Don't mutter. Bad manners. Captain's prisoner," said the soldier in three jerks, as before.