the scattered houses and spacious gardens gave place to the
streets of Polistopolis, the capital of the kingdom. And the streets
were strangely deserted. The children both felt--in that quite certain
and unexplainable way--that it would be unwise of them to go to the
place where they had slept the last time they were in that city.

The whole party was very tired. Max walked with drooping tail, and
Brenda was whining softly to herself from sheer weariness and
weak-mindedness. The parrot alone was happy--or at least contented.
Because it was asleep.

At the corner of a little square planted with southernwood-trees in
tubs, Philip called a halt.

'Where shall we go?' he said; 'let us put it to the vote.'

And even as he spoke, he saw a dark form creeping along in the shadow of
the houses.

'Who goes there?' Philip cried with proper spirit, and the answer
surprised him, all the more that it was given with a kind of desperate
bravado.

'I go here; I, Plumbeus, Captain of the old Guard of Polistopolis.'

'Oh, it's you!' cried Philip; 'I _am_ glad. You can advise us. Where can
we go to sleep? Somehow or other I don't care to go to the house where
we stayed before.'

The captain made no answer. He simply caught at the hands of Lucy and
Philip, dragged them through a low arched doorway and, as soon as the
long lengths of Brenda and Max had slipped through, closed the door.

'Safe,' he said in a breathless way, which made Philip feel that safety
was the last thing one could count on at that moment.

'Now, speak low, who knows what spies may be listening? I am a plain
man. I speak as I think. You came out of the unknown. You may be the
Deliverer or the Destroyer. But I am a judge of faces--always was from
a boy--and I cannot believe that this countenance of apple-cheeked
innocence is that of a Destroyer.'

Philip was angry and Lucy was furious. So he said nothing. And she said:

'Apple-cheeked yourself!' which was very rude.

'I see that you are annoyed,' said the captain in the dark, where, of
course, he could see nothing; 'but in calling your friend apple-cheeked
I was merely offering the highest compliment in my power. The absence of
fruit in this city is, I suppose, the reason why our compliments are
like that. I believe poets say "sweet as a rose"--_we_ say "sweet as an
orange." May I be allowed unreservedly to apologise?'

'Oh, that's all right,' said Philip awkwardly.

'And to ask whether you _are_ the Del