“No.”
“Then I’ll wake up for you,” she murmured cheerfully, and promptly fell fast asleep.
Again lifting her tenderly in his arms, he resumed the journey.
On reaching the city he circled the wall until he came to one of the gates, where he stood the girl on the ground and shook her gently into consciousness.
“Where am I?” she asked.
“At the gates of Vairkingi,” Myles answered.
She ran her hands rapidly over her mud-caked fur.
“Oh, but I can’t go in like this,” she wailed, “I’m covered with mud from head to foot! Think how I must look! No, I refuse to go in.”
“If you stay here,” he urged mildly, “then when morning comes every one will see you, the Princess Quivven, bedraggled with mud, hanging around outside the city gates. Better far to go in now, and take a chance of being seen by only one sentinel.”
“Oh, you beast, you beast!” she sobbed, beating him futilely with her tiny paws.