“I’m pretty excited myself, Miss Phyllisy,” said the Princess. “I’d like to rest a few minutes. What should you say to a few chocolates? You might look at the box, at least, if you don’t care to eat them. It’s a very pretty one.”
“Where is it?” asked Pat.
When she brought it to the Princess, they all crowded around her chair and admired the outside of the box. Then she lifted the cover slowly, to show the chocolates packed in rows of different shapes with crimpy paper, and little tongs to pick up the kind they wanted. And the Princess let them go down to the under layers to see if they were different.
Still, they were very anxious to go on and find out what happened; and when the Princess had rested and Phyllisy had attended to the fire—it would have needed it soon any way—they went back to their old places and the Princess began again.
“You know how Old Sol stays a little while every year in each of the Houses of the Zodiac?
“It happened, when he glanced through the long slit in the clouds at Torquillon and the two ships, that he was making his visit to the Gemini Brothers; and that was very fortunate, because it gave him an idea.
“It was only a glimpse he had of that chase, but it was enough to show him that it was going to be hard times for the Jane Ellen and the Reindeer unless something were done for them before it was too late. And Castor and Pollux were right at hand and able to do it, so it was the most natural thing that he should send them.”
“And they’re specially for sailors—friends,” remarked Pat.
“Specially; Sol knew it. ‘Now’s your chance,’ he said, ‘you ground-and-lofty tumblers. Tumble right down, or that wicked Torquillon will have the Jane Ellen and the Reindeer made into kindling wood—if they don’t run ashore first, in the dark.’
“The darkness came so suddenly on the ships when the clouds closed down in the West, that it was bewildering. And they were so surprised and disappointed that Torquillon had not fallen into the trap they had laid for him that they hardly knew what to do.