"What's all this, I say—you?" demanded his captain.
"I don't know any bloomin' thing about it——" began Bob, with whom ignorance, if not honesty, was certainly the best policy.
"Salute!" roared his officer; "don't you know enough to salute when you speak to me? Want to get knocked endways?"
Sulkily Bob Hetherington obeyed.
"Well?" said Nipper Donnan, somewhat appeased by the appearance of Nosie Cuthbertson as he scrambled up the bank, with the green scum of duckweed clinging all over him. He was shaking his head and muttering anathemas, declaring what his father would do to Nipper Donnan, when within his heart he knew that first of all something very painful would be done to himself by that able-bodied relative as soon as ever he showed face at home.
"This girl she come to the drawbridge and hollered—that's all I know!" said the sentry, disassociating himself from any trouble as completely as possible. Bob felt that under the circumstances it was very distinctly folly to be wise. "I don't know what she hollered, but Nosie he runs an' begins twisting her arm, and then the girl she begins to holler again!"
"I didn't mean to," said Prissy tremulously, "but he was hurting so dreadfully."
"Come here, you!" shouted Nipper to the retiring Nosie. Whereupon that young gentleman, hearing the dreadful voice of his chief officer, and being at the time on the right side of the moat, did not pause to respond, but promptly took to his heels in the direction of the town.
"Run after him and bring him back, two of you fellows! Don't dare come back without him!" cried Nipper, and at his word two big boys detached themselves from the doorposts in which the guard was kept, and dashed after the deserter.
"Oh, don't hurt him—perhaps he didn't mean it!" cried the universally sympathetic Prissy. "He didn't hurt me much after all, and it is quite better now anyway."