rom her head, dashed
out of a back-door. We followed hotly, but she was out of the yard, over
a wall, and into a side lane, almost before we knew it.

Then a good chase began. Priscilla had a long start of us, for we had
bungled at the wall, but we were bound to catch her.

I was a good runner, and Rectus was light and active, although I am not
sure that he could keep up the thing very long; but the two yellow-legs
surprised me. They took the lead of us, directly, and kept it. Behind us
came a lot of darkeys, not trying to catch Priscilla, but anxious, I
suppose, to see what was going to happen.

Priscilla still kept well ahead. She had struck out of the lane into a
road which led toward the outskirts of the town. I think we were
beginning to gain on her when, all of a sudden, she sat down. With a
shout, we rushed on, but before we reached her she had jerked off both
her shoes,--she didn't wear any stockings,--and she sprang to her feet
and was off again. Waving the shoes over her head, she jumped and leaped
and bounded like an India-rubber goat. Priscilla, barefooted, couldn't
be caught by any man on the island: we soon saw that. She flew down the
road, with the white dust flying behind her, until she reached a big
limestone quarry, where the calcareous building-material of the town is
sawn out in great blocks, and there she made a sharp turn and dashed
down in among the stones. We reached the place just in time to see her
run across the quarry, slip in between two great blocks that were
standing up like statue pedestals on the other side, and disappear.

We rushed over, we searched and looked, here and there and everywhere,
and all the darkeys searched and looked, but we found no Priscilla. She
had gone away.

Puffing and blowing like four steam-fire-engines, we sat down on some
stones and wiped our faces.

"I guess we just ran that upstart queen out of her possessions," said
the tall yellow-legs, dusting his boots with his handkerchief. He was
satisfied.

We walked home by the road at the edge of the harbor. The cool air from
the water was very pleasant to us. When we reached the hotel, we found
Mr. and Mrs. Chipperton and Corny sitting outside, in the entrance
court, waiting for supper-time. A lot of arm-chairs always stood there,
so that people might sit and wait for meals, or anything else that they
expected. When Corny heard the dreadful news of the fall of our kingdom,
she was so shocked that she could s