Further up the passage Henri pressed another knob in the wall, and the opening immediately created let in a veritable blaze of sunlight.
It was a small, narrow room on the other side of this panel, but spangled with mullioned or barred windows.
Off this room was another apartment, longer but no wider than the first. In this latter chamber stood a gilded bedstead under canopy.
“Here,” said Henri, “royalty was once upon a time concealed, when it was good for his princely health to be hidden.”
Billy was more intent on the project of testing the bed than listening to legends. He mussed up the rich covering to his liking and rolled like a log, clothes and all, into the broad expanse under the canopy. Henri and Reddy with no more ceremony followed suit, and the three went after the record of the famous Seven Sleepers.
It was early afternoon when a tremendous clatter of iron-shod hoofs in the stone courtyard far below roused Reddy, who always slept with one ear open.
With no effort to select a favorite, Reddy applied spanks right and left to his snoring companions.
“Who hit me?” demanded Billy in a dream voice.
“Where’s the trouble?” Henri was probing the covers in his haste to reach the inside works of an imaginary aëroplane motor.
Reddy dragged Henri out of bed by the heels, and in watching the wrestling match that followed Billy lost the desire to turn over for just one more nap.