“Ruby; Bertrand,” she said, “you cannot mean to be so wicked. You know the villagers are already set against old Adam rather, even though he has been so good to them, and if you stir them up—they might kill him if they really thought he was a wizard.”
“We’re not going to do anything till we know for ourselves,” said Ruby. “We’re first going to the cottage really to find out if it’s true. You know yourself, Mavis, we did hear some one singing and speaking there the other day who wasn’t to be seen when we got there. And I believe it was a mermaid, or—or a syren, or some witchy sort of creature.” Mavis was silent. She had her own thoughts about the voice they had overheard, thoughts which she could not share with the others.
“Oh, dear Princess Forget-me-not,” she said to her self, “why don’t you make them see you, and understand how naughty they are?”
For the moment she had forgotten the princess’s promise that neither Winfried nor his grandfather should suffer any harm, and she felt terribly frightened and unhappy.
“Where is Winfried?” she said at last. “He will see us going out to sea when he comes down to the shore, and if he tells cousin Hortensia she can easily get some of the fishermen to come after us. They can row far quicker than you.”
Bertrand stopped rowing to laugh more rudely than before.
“Can they?” he said. “I doubt it. And as for Winfried telling—why, he doesn’t know; he’s locked in safe and sound in the west turret! He’ll be quite comfortable there for as long as I choose to leave him, and however he shouts no one can hear him. Not that there’s much fear of any of those lumbering boats overtaking us if they tried—why—”
He took up the oars again as he spoke, but before he began to row he half started and glanced round. No wonder; the boat was gliding out to sea without his help, quite as fast as when he was rowing.
“How—how it drifts!” he said in a rather queer tone of voice. “Is there a current hereabouts, Ruby?”
“I suppose so,” said Ruby. “Try and row the other way, that’ll soon show you.”