n on them.

At about half past two he arrived, bringing a great tale of the
excitement of the countryside at the kidnaping of the princess. So far
its simple-minded inhabitants and the suite of the princess were
content with the socialist explanation of her disappearance; and three
counties round were being searched by active policemen on bicycles for
some one who had seen a suspicious motor-car containing Socialists and
a princess. It was the general belief that she had been chloroformed
and abducted through her bedroom window.

With admirable gravity the Twins discussed with Wiggins the
probabilities of their success and of the recovery of the princess, the
routes by which the Socialists might have carried her off, and the
towns in which the lair to which they had taken her might be. At the
end of half an hour of it the princess came out of her cave, her eyes,
very bright with sleep, blinking in the sunlight.

Wiggins cried out in surprise; and the Twins laughed joyfully.

Wiggins greeted the princess politely; and then he said reproachfully:
"You might have told me that she was coming here."

"You ought to have known as soon as you heard she was missing," said
Erebus sternly.

"So I should, if I'd known you knew her at all," said Wiggins.

"That's what nobody knows," said Erebus triumphantly.

"And look here: she's here incognita," said the Terror. "She's taken
the traveling name of Lady Rowington; and she's not the princess at
all. So if you're asked if the princess is here, you can truthfully
say she isn't."

"Of course--I see. This is a go!" said Wiggins cheerfully; and he
spurned the earth.

"The only chance of her being found is for somebody to come up when
we're not expecting them and see her," said the Terror. "So I'm going
to block the path with thorn-bushes; and any one who comes up it will
shout to us. But there's no need to do that yet; nobody will think
about us for a day or two."

"No; of course they won't. I didn't," said Wiggins.

The active life persisted throughout that day and the days that
followed. It kept the princess always beside the Terror. Always he
was using his greater strength to help her lead it at the required
speed. Never in the history of the courts of Europe has a princess
been so hauled, shoved, dragged, jerked, towed and lugged over rough
ground. On the second morning she awoke so stiff that she could hardly
move; but by the fifth evening she could give f