"HYDRAULIC PRESSURE."

Joe Craig obediently saluted, and presently sundry moans and sounds of exhausted breath indicated that Nosie Cuthbertson was being subjected to hydraulic pressure by the unseen tormentor whom Nipper Donnan had called Fat Sandy. Prissy felt that nothing she could say would for the present lessen Master Nosie's griefs, so she went on to accomplish her purpose by other means.

"If you please, Mr. Captain," she said politely, "I thought you would like to taste our nice sheep's-head-pie. Janet makes it all out of her own head. Besides, there are some dee-licious fruits which I have brought you; and if you will let me come in, I will make you some lovely tea?"

Nipper Donnan considered, and at last shook his head.

"I don't know," he said, "'tisn't regular. How do we know that you aren't a spy?"

"You could bind my eyes with a napkin, and——"

"That's the thing!" cried several of Nipper's followers, who scented something to eat, and who knew that the commissariat was the weak point in the defences of the Castle of Windy Standard under the Consulship of Donnan.

"Well," said the chief, "that's according to rule. Here, Timothy Tracy, tell us if that is all right."

Whereupon uprose Timothy Tracy, a long lank boy with yellowish hair and dull lack-lustre eyes, out of a niche in the wall and unfolded a number of "The Wild Boys of New York." He rustled the flaccid, ill-conditioned leaves and found the place.

"'Then Bendigo Bill went to the gateway of the stockade to interview the emissary of the besiegers. With keen unerring eyes he examined his credentials, and finding them correct, he took from the breast of his fringed buckskin hunting-dress a handkerchief of fine Indian silk, and with it he swathed the eyes of the ambassador. Then taking the envoy by the hand he led him past the impregnable defences of the Comanche Cowboys into the presence of their haughty chief, who was seated with the fair Luluja beside him, holding her delicate hand, and inhaling the fragrance of a choice Havanna cigar through his noble aquiline nose.'

"That's all it says," said Timothy Tracy, succinctly, and straightway curled himself up again to resume his own story at the place where he had left it off.

"Well, that's all pretty straight and easy. Nobody can say fairer nor that," meditated Bob Hetherington.

"Shut up!" said his chief; "who asked for your oar? I'll knock the bloomin' nut off you if you don't watch out. Blindfold the emissary of the enemy, and bring her before me into the inner court."

And with this peremptory command, Nipper Donnan disappeared.

But the order was more easily given than obeyed. For not only could the entire array of the Comanche Cowboys produce nothing even distantly resembling Indian silk (which at any rate was a counsel of perfection), but what was worse, their pockets were equally destitute of common domestic linen. Indeed the proceedings would have fallen through at this point had not the ambassadress offered her own. This was knotted round her brows by Joe Craig, with the best intentions in the world.

Immediately after completing the arrangement, he stepped in front of Prissy and said, thrusting his fist below her nose, "Tell me if you see anything—mind, true as 'Hope-you-may-Die!'"

"I do see something, something very dirty," said Prissy, "but I can't quite tell what it is."

"She can see, boys," cried Joe indignantly, "it's my hand."

Every boy recognised the description, and the handkerchief was once more adjusted with greater care and precision than before, so that it was only by the sense of smell that Prissy could judge of the proximity of Joe Craig's fingers.

"Please let me carry my basket myself—I've got my best china tea-service in it—and then I will be sure that it won't get broken."

A licentious soldiery was about to object, but a stern command issued unexpectedly from one of the arrow-slits through which their chief had been on the watch.

"Give the girl the basket! Do you hear—you?"

And in this manner Prissy entered the castle, guarded on either side by soldiers with fixed (wooden) bayonets. And at the inner and outer ports, the convoy was halted and asked for the pass-word.

"Death!" cried Joe Craig, at the pitch of his voice.

"Vengeance!" replied the sentry. "Pass, 'Death'!"

At last Prissy felt the grass beneath her feet, and the handkerchief being slipped from her eyes, she found herself within the courtyard of the castle. The captain of the band sat before her with a red sash tied tightly about his waist. By his side swung a butcher's steel, almost as long and twice as dangerous as a sword.

Prissy began her mission at once, to allow Captain Donnan no time to order her out again, or to put her into a dungeon, as he had done with Hugh John.

"I think we had better have tea first," she said. "Have you got a match-box?"

She could not have taken a better line. Nipper Donnan stepped down from his high horse at once. He put his hand into his pocket. "I have only fusees," he said grandly, "but perhaps they will do. You see regular smokers never use anything else."

"Oh yes, they will do perfectly," returned Prissy sweetly, "it is just to light the spirit-lamp. See how nicely it fits in. Isn't it a beauty? I got that from father on my birthday. Wasn't it nice of him?"

Nipper Donnan grunted. He never found any marked difference between his birthday and any other day. Nevertheless he stood by and assisted at the making of the tea, a process which interested him greatly.

"I shall need some more fresh spring water for so many cups," said Prissy, "I only brought the full of the kettle with me."

The chief slightly waved a haughty hand, which instantly impelled Joe Craig forward as if moved by a spring. "Bring some fresh water from the well!" he commanded.

Joe Craig took the tin dipper, and was marching off. Prissy looked distressed.

"What is it?" said the robber chief. Now Prissy did not want to be rude, but she had her feelings.

"Oh, please, Mr. Captain," she said, "his hands—I think he has perhaps been working——"

Nipper Donnan had no fine scruples, but he respected them in such an unknown quantity as this dainty little lady with the green trimmed sun-bonnet and the widely-opened eyes.

"Tracy, fetch the water, you lazy jaundiced toad!" he commanded. The sallow student rose unwillingly, and moved off with his face still bent upon the thrilling pages of "The Wild Boys of New York," which he held folded small in his hand for convenience of perusal.

Presently the tea being made, the white cloth was laid on the grass, and the entire company of the Smoutchy Boys crowded about, always excepting the sentinels at the east and west doors, who being on duty could not immediately participate. The sheep's-head-pie, the bread, the butter, the fruits were all set out in order, and the whole presented such an appearance as the inside of the Castle of Windy Standard had never seen through all its generations.

Prissy conducted herself precisely as if she had been dispensing afternoon tea to callers in the drawing-room, as, since her last birthday, her father had occasionally permitted her to do.

"Do you take sugar?" she asked, delicately poising a piece in the dolls' sugar-tongs, and smiling her most politefully conventional smile at Nipper Donnan.

The brigand chief had never been asked such a question before, and had no answer of the usual kind at hand. But he replied for all that.

"Rather!" he cried in a burst, "if the grocer's not lookin'!"

"I mean in your tea! Do you take sugar in your tea?"

Prissy was still smiling.

Nipper appeared to acquiesce. Two knobs of sugar were dropped in. The whipped cream out of the wide-mouthed bottle was spooned delicately on the top, and with a yet more charming smile the cup was passed to him. He held it between his finger and thumb, as an inquiring naturalist holds a rare beetle. Then he put it down on a low fragment of wall and looked at it.

"One lump or two?" queried Prissy again, graciously transferring her attentions to Joe Craig.

"Eh, what?" ejaculated that warrior. Prissy repeated her question.

"As many as I can get!" cried the boy.

So one by one the brigands were served, and the subdued look which rests upon a Sunday-school picnic at the hour of refreshment settled down upon them. The Smoutchy boy is bad and bold, but he does not like you to see him in the act of eating. His instinct is to get behind a wall, or into the thick of a copse and do it there. A similar feeling sends the sparrow with a larger crumb than the others into the seclusion of his nest among the ivy.

Nevertheless the bread and jam, the raisins, and the sheep's-head-pie disappeared 'like snow off a dyke.' The wonder of the thimbleful cups, continually replenished, grew more and more surprising; and, winking slyly at each other the Smoutchies passed them in with a touch of their caps to be filled and refilled again and again. Prissy kept the kettle beside her, out of which she poured the water brought by Timothy Tracy as she wanted it. The golden colour of the tea degenerated, but so long as a few drops of milk remained to mask the fraud from their eyes, the Smoutchies drank the warm water with equal relish.

"Besides it's so much better for your nerves, you know!" said Prissy, putting her action upon a hygienic basis.

At first the boys had been inclined to snatch the viands from the table-cloth, and there was one footprint on the further edge. But the iron hand of Nipper Donnan knocked two or three intruders sprawling, and after that the eatables were distributed as patiently and exactly as at a Lord Mayor's banquet.

"Please will you let that boy get up?—I think he must have been sat upon quite long enough now," said Prissy, who could not bear to listen to the uneasy groaning of the oppressed prisoner.

The chief granted the boon. The sitter and his victim came in and were regaled amicably from one plate. "Pieces" and full cups of tea were despatched to the distant sentinels, and finally the whole company was in the midst of washing up, when Prissy, who had been kneeling on the grass wiping saucers one by one, suddenly rose to her feet with a little cry.

"Oh, it is so dreadful—I quite forgot!"

The Smoutchies stood open-mouthed, some holding dishes, some with belated pieces of pie, some only with their hands in their pockets, but all waiting eagerly for the revelation of the dreadful thing which their hostess had forgotten.

"Why, we forgot to say grace!" she cried—"well, anyway I am glad I remembered in time. We can say it now. Who is the youngest?"

The boys all looked guiltily at each other. Prissy picked out a small boy of stunted aspect, but whose face was old and wizened. He had just put a piece of tobacco into his mouth to take away the taste of the tea.

"You say it, little boy," she said pointedly, and shut her eyes for him to begin.

The boy gasped, glanced once at his chief, and made a bolt for the door, through which he had fled before the sentinels had time to stop him. At the clatter Prissy opened her eyes.

"What is the matter with that boy? Couldn't he say grace? Didn't he remember the beginning? Well, you say it then——"

Nipper Donnan shook his head. He had a fine natural contempt for all religious services in the abstract, but when one was brought before him as a ceremony, his sense of discipline told him that it must somehow be valuable.

"Better say it yourself," he suggested.

Whereat Prissy devoutly clasped her hands and shut her eyes.

There was a smart smack and something fell over. Prissy opened her eyes, and saw a boy sprawling on the grass.

"Right," said Nipper Donnan cheerfully, "go ahead—Joe Craig laughed. I'll teach him to laugh except when I tell him to."

So Prissy again proceeded with a grace of her own composition:

After all was over Prissy left the Castle of Windy Standard, without indeed obtaining any pledge from the chief of the army of occupation, but not without having done some good. And she went forth with dignity too. For not only did the robber chieftain provide her with an escort, but he ordered the ramparts to be manned, and a general salute to be fired in her honour.

Prissy waved her hand vigorously, and had already proceeded a little way towards the stepping-stones, when she stopped, laid down her basket, and ran back to the postern gate. She took her little tortoise-shell card-case out of her pocket.

"Oh, I was nearly forgetting—how dreadfully rude of me!" she said, and forthwith pulled out a card on which she had previously written very neatly:

She laid it on the stones, and tripped away. "I'm sorry I have not my brother's card to leave also," she said, looking up at the brigand chief, who had been watching her curiously from a window.

"Oh," said Nipper Donnan, "we shall be pleased to see him if he drops in on Saturday—or any other time."

Then he waited till the trim white figure was some distance from the gateway before he took his cap from his head and waved it in the air.

"Three proper cheers for the little lady!" he cried.

And the grim old walls of the Castle of Windy Standard never echoed to a heartier shout than that with which the Smoutchy boys sped Miss Priscilla Smith, the daughter of their arch enemy, upon her homeward way.

Prissy poised herself on tiptoe at the entrance of the copse, and blew them a dainty collective kiss from her fingers.

"Thank you so much," she cried, "you are very kind. Come and see me soon—and be sure you stop to tea."

And with that she tripped swiftly away homeward with an empty basket and a happy heart.

That night in her little room before she went to sleep she read over her favourite text, "Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the children of God."

"Oh dear," she said, "I should so like to be one some day."