CHAPTER IX
PUT TO THE QUESTION
IN the chaste retirement of his sick room the Field-Marshal had just reached this conclusion, when he heard a noise in the hall. There was a sound of the gruff unmirthful voices of grown-ups, a scuffling of feet, a planting of whips and walking-sticks on the zinc-bottomed hall-stand, and then, after a pause which meant drinks, heavy footsteps in the passage which led to the hero's chamber.
Hugh John snatched up Sambo Soulis and thrust him deep beneath the bedclothes, where he could readily push him over the end with his toes, if it should chance to be "the doctor-beast" come to uncover him and "fool with the bandages." I have said enough to show that the General was not only frankly savage in sentiment, but resembled his great imperial namesake in being grateful only when it suited him.
Before General Napoleon had his toes fairly settled over the back of Sambo Soulis' neck, so as to be able to remove him out of harm's way on any sudden alarm, the door opened and his father came in, ushering two men, the first of whom came forward to the bedside in an easy, kindly manner, and held out his hand.
"Do you know me?" he said, giving Hugh John's second sorest hand such a squeeze that the wounded hero was glad it was not the very sorest one.
"Yes," replied the hero promptly, "you are Sammy Carter's father. I can jolly well lick – "
"Hugh John," interrupted his father severely, "remember what you are saying to Mr. Davenant Carter."
"Well, anyway, I can lick Sammy Carter till he's dumb-sick!" muttered the General between his teeth, as he avoided the three pairs of eyes that were turned upon him.
"Oh, let him say just what he likes!" said Mr. Davenant Carter jovially. "Sammy is the better of being licked, if that is what the boy was going to say. I sometimes try my hand at it myself with some success."
The other man who had come in with Mr. Smith was a thick-set fellow of middle height, with a curious air of being dressed up in somebody else's clothes. Yet they fitted him very well. He wore on his face (in addition to a slight moustache) an expression which somehow made Hugh John think guiltily of all the orchards he had ever visited along with Toady Lion and Sammy Carter's sister Cissy, who was "no end of a nice girl" in Hugh John's estimation.
"This, Hugh," said his father, with a little wave of his hand, "is Mr. Mant, the Chief Constable of the county. Mr. Carter and he have come to ask you a few questions, which you will answer at once."
"I won't be dasht-mean!" muttered Napoleon Smith to himself.
"What's that?" ejaculated Mr. Smith, catching the echo of his son's rumble of dissent.
"Only my leg that hurted," said the hypocritical hero of battles.
"Don't you think we should have the other children here?" said Mr. Chief Constable Mant, speaking for the first time in a gruff, move-on-there voice.
"Certainly," assented Mr. Smith, going to the door. "Janet!"
"Yes, sir!"
The answer came from immediately behind the door.
The Field-Marshal's brow darkened, or rather it would have done so if there had been no white bandages over it. This is the correct expression anyhow – though ordinary brows but seldom behave in this manner.
"Prissy's all right," he thought to himself, "but if that little fool Toady Lion – "
And he clenched his second sorest hand under the clothes, and kicked Sambo Soulis to the foot of the bed in a way which augured but little mercy to Sir Toady Lion if, after all his training, he should turn out "dasht-mean" in the hour of trial.
Presently the other two children were pushed in at the door, Toady Lion trying a bolt at the last moment, which Janet Sheepshanks easily foiled by catching at the slack of his trousers behind, while Prissy stood holding her hands primly as if in Sunday-school class. Both afforded to the critical eye of Hugh John complete evidence that they had only just escaped from the Greater Pain of the comb and soaped flannel-cloth of Janet Sheepshanks. Prissy's curls were still wet and smoothed out, and Toady Lion was trying in vain to rub the yellow soap out of his eyes.
So at the headquarters of its general, the army of Windy Standard formed up. Sir Toady Lion wished to get within supporting distance of Prissy, and accordingly kept snuggling nearer all the time, so that he could get a furtive hold of her skirts at awkward places in the examination. This he could do the more easily that General Field-Marshal Smith was prevented by the bandages over his right eye, and also by the projecting edges of the pillow, from seeing Toady Lion's left hand.
"Now, Priscilla," began her father, "tell Mr. Davenant Carter and Mr. Mant what happened in the castle, and the names of any of the bad boys who stole your pet lamb."
"Wasn't no lamb – Donald was a sheep, and he could fight," began Toady Lion, without relevance, but with his usual eagerness to hear the sound of his own piping voice. In his zeal he took a step forward and so brought himself on the level of the eye of his general, who from the pillow darted upon him a look so freezing that Sir Toady Lion instantly fell back into the ranks, and clutched Prissy's skirt with such energy as almost to stagger her severe deportment.
"Now," said the Chief Constable of Bordershire, "tell me what were the names of the assailants."
He was listening to the tale as told by Prissy with his note-book ready in his hand, occasionally biting at the butt of the pencil, and anon wetting the lead in his mouth, under the mistaken idea that by so doing he improved its writing qualities.
"I think," began Prissy, "that they were – "
"A-chew!" came from the bed and from under the bandages with a sudden burst of sound. Field-Marshal Napoleon Smith had sneezed. That was all.
But Prissy started. She knew what it meant. It was the well-known signal not to commit herself under examination.
Her father looked round at the open windows.
"Are you catching cold with the draught, Hugh John?" he asked kindly.
"I think I have a little cold," said the wily General, who did not wish all the windows to be promptly shut.
"Don't know all their names, but the one that hurted me was – " began Toady Lion.
But who the villain was will never be known, for at that moment the bedclothes became violently disturbed immediately in front of Sir Toady Lion's nose. A fearful black countenance nodded once at him and disappeared.
"Black Sambo!" gasped Toady Lion, awed by the terrible appearance, and falling back from the place where the wizard had so suddenly appeared.
"What did I understand you to say, little boy?" said Mr. Mant, with his pencil on his book.
"Ow – it was Black Sambo!" Toady Lion almost screamed. Mr. Mant gravely noted the fact.
"What in the world does he mean?" asked Mr. Mant, casting his eyes searchingly from Prissy to General Napoleon and back again.
"He means 'Black Sambo'!" said Prissy, devoting herself strictly to facts, and leaving the Chief Constable to his proper business of interpreting them.
"What is his other name?" said Mr. Mant.
"Soulis!" said General Smith from the bed.
The three gentlemen looked at each other, smiled, and shook their heads.
"What did I tell you?" said Mr. Davenant Carter. "Try as I will, I cannot get the simplest thing out of my Sammy and Cissy if they don't choose to tell."
Nevertheless Mr. Smith, being a sanguine man and with little experience of children, tried again.
"There is no black boy in the neighbourhood," said Mr. Smith severely; "now tell the truth, children – at once, when I bid you!"
He uttered the last words in a loud and commanding tone.
"Us is telling the troof, father dear," said Toady Lion, in the "coaxy-woaxy" voice which he used when he wanted marmalade from Janet or a ride on the saddle from