“Where could Peggy have gone at such an early hour?” he thought to himself.
Had she been intending to stay away a long while, she would have dressed herself and said, “Good-bye, Ralph, and be good till I come back.” She only just put on her Tammy, and went gliding out and away.
A whole half-hour passed, and then Ralph waxed very uneasy indeed.
He got up and stood for some time behind the door, sniffing and listening, his noble head a trifle on one side. There were no signs of Peggy in that direction. Then he stood at one of the windows for fully five minutes, gazing sideways out at the sea. For his mistress had a little tent she could easily carry, and often went to the beach to bathe. But he could not see her now, and his anxiety increased. It would not have been becoming in so noble a specimen of the race canine to lie down and cry. Leave such conduct for tiny dogs, he thought.
Yet she was staying so long. What could be the matter? He walked up to Kammie’s cage with outstretched neck, as if to ask him the question. Kammie was a good specimen of that strange, weird-looking, and old-world lizard called the chameleon, who stalks flies and little grubs when you place him on the grass in the sunshine, or even in your bedroom; who crawls about with marvellous slowness and deliberation, just one leg at a time; who changes colour to match his surroundings; who has two large, circular eyelids, a bright bead of an eye in the very centre of each, and possesses the power of looking in two different directions at one and the same time.
But Kammie was still exactly in the same position in which he had gone to sleep at sunset on the previous evening. No use expecting an answer from Kammie, so Ralph marched to the back door once again, and examined the fastenings. He even shook them, but all in vain.
With a deep dog-sigh he lay down now; but presently on his listening ear, from out the silent depths of the forest, fell a scream so pitiful and so agonising that Ralph started to his feet, all of a tremble with excitement.
Yes, yes; it was the voice of his dear little mistress! She must be in danger, and he not there to protect her!
Once again it rose and died away in terror, like the half-smothered shriek of one in a nightmare.
The dog hesitated no longer.