Chapter XII: Princess Star

Dick could not imagine how the Princess could hear, ’way up in the air so high; but in a minute a pretty, frowning face appeared, leaning out over the window-sill. A sweet, rather cross, little voice—you could hear every word quite clearly—said, “You bad Mudge! why did you not come sooner?”

Then she caught sight of Dick, and gave a little scream. “Who’s that with you?”

“Someone sent by Mother Goose to help Prince Humpty Dumpty,” said Mudge.

“Mother Goose, my future mother-in-law!” exclaimed the Princess, and sighed. “I should like to see him closer,” she added, and was silent for a moment, as though thinking. But in that moment something happened.

A sound of voices and tramping feet echoed around a corner of the Palace, and the Princess suddenly pulled in her head, while Mudge as promptly took to his heels. So Dick was left alone, for he was too bewildered to run at first; and by the time that he had made up his mind to try to escape, he was entirely surrounded by some fierce-looking men-at-arms, all dressed in bright red.

“What are you doing here?” demanded the leader, ferociously.

“Stealing flowers from our tree?” suggested one of the others.

Dick did not know what to say. He hated to lie, but there was the Princess to be thought of, and Humpty Dumpty, and Mother Goose, and Meg, and Bab, and dozens of other considerations. So he decided not to tell _quite_ all the truth.

“I—they are very pretty,” he admitted, hanging his head and feeling very much ashamed; for his many faults had never included lying before.

“It is against the law, and you must go to prison,” declared the soldier. “Probably the Wicked King, our master, will have you beheaded without delay; and, for my part, I think that even that will be better than you deserve!”

Dick felt so sad and angry at the thought of failure—to say nothing of the danger that he was in—that he could have cried; only, being a boy, of course he didn’t!

But he wished _hard_ for some idea to come to him that would show him a way out of his trouble. And suddenly a big Dragon-Fly whizzed up to him, apparently on its way to the green flowers on the tree overhead.

With a sudden impulse Dick whispered “Help me, dear, good, kind Dragon-Fly!” as he had to the flowers.

The Dragon-Fly wheeled in its whirring flight, and flew close to his lips.

“Tell Bizzybuzz, the Goblin,” murmured Dick; and the insect darted swiftly away. Dick could not tell whether or no it had heard him or would repeat his message, but he felt a trifle happier.

“Come on, Thief!” said the man-at-arms, pulling Dick along by the arm.

At this point the Princess stuck her head out of the turret window once more.

“What have you there?” she asked very sweetly.

The men answered her most respectfully; for though she was a prisoner in a turret of her father’s castle, they all looked up to her with something approaching adoration,—something which, with all their fear, they never gave her cruel father.

“This is a thief, your Highness,” said the head man in red, bowing very low. “He was about to steal some of the flowers from the beautiful tree that grows under your Highness’s window!”

“Why, the horrid little wretch!” exclaimed the Princess, pretending to be extremely angry. “Just you bring him up to me! I should like to look at any little boy who could be so terribly wicked!”

“We must take him to prison at once, your Highness,” protested the man. But she persisted.

“I want to see him!” she said. “I’d like to box his wicked ears myself! That lovely tree! Why, looking at it and counting its blooms every morning is one of the few pleasures I have!” And she pretended to sob bitterly. “Bring him up!” she cried again. “Bring him up, I say!”

“Oh, well!” said the man-at-arms, with a shrug of his shoulders. “Of course, if your august Highness insists—” And Dick was taken into the Palace by a side door, and marched up ever so many stairs to the Princess’s room.

There they found, keeping guard, several men, who let them pass, looking quite amazed. And so they came at last into the Princess Star’s tower-prison.

The Princess Star was really a very pretty little princess, though she did not look particularly cheerful nor even remarkably good-tempered; and her room itself was a marvel of gorgeous disorder. Flowers and jewels and splendid stuffs were flung about as though the Princess had been venting her temper upon them. There was a parrot on a perch, a yellow cat on a cushion, a big green lizard on the end of a gold chain, a little silver cage of queer birds, and a big crystal basin full of beautiful fishes of all sorts swimming about in rose-coloured water.

In the centre of everything sat the Princess on a little gold stool with three legs (for all the world like a milking-stool!), dressed in some very magnificent robes and gems and with her crown somewhat awry.

When she saw Dick, she pretended to fly into a rage and to try to box his ears; but finally she very cleverly pretended to calm down, and declared that he wasn’t a bad-looking little boy—for a thief! And then she said that she needed a page to look after her pets, and announced that she would keep him. The head man-at-arms objected, of course, saying that he must take the thief to prison to await the pleasure of the Wicked King. But at that the Princess flew into another rage,—real, this time,—and threw things at him—beginning with a jewelled hour-glass and ending with a mandolin—until he was very glad to leave the royal young lady’s apartments on any terms.

So they all backed away as fast as they possibly could, and shut the door very tight behind them. And Dick was left alone with pretty, bad-tempered, disorderly Princess Star.

“There!” she exclaimed, flinging herself into a sort of throne-like chair that was made of silver and inlaid with gold. “Now we can talk sense at last! Tell me at once who you are and why you are here!”

So Dick told her obediently, and she listened with the deepest attention.

“You’re a dear little boy,” she said at last, “and you may sit on my lap if you want to.”

Dick did not want to, for he thought it babyish; but he hated to seem rude. So he accepted her invitation, and found that a Princess’s lap was very much like other people’s; it reminded him a little too much of his mother’s, and made him homesick. So he got down just as soon as he could politely.

“And now,” said the Princess, “what are we to do next? I wish we knew where the spell can be found that can move my poor Humpty Dumpty from his dreadful place on the top of the city wall.”

“So do I—” Dick was beginning, when there was a sudden sound outside, the door flew open, and they saw—

XIII

“_Harness the Reindeer!_”