thoroughly.
He rolled up the plans and decided there were really no more undiscovered hiding places outside the priest's hole and the hidden staircase.
He would go to sleep early so as to be ready to continue the search early in the morning.
As soon as a red stormy dawn lit the heaving gray sea, Mr. Palfrey was there in an open boat piloted by the yeoman who had shied a piece of turf at him, but who now respected this man who had proved his love for the lost girl. Mr. Palfrey had grappling irons and various contrivances for hooking down into the water. It was the lowest tide they had had for some months, and Mr. Palfrey saw with rising excitement that there was an almost uncovered stretch of sand at the base of the rock. “Over there!” he cried to the yeoman, Mr. Godfrey.
“Better be careful,” shouted Mr. Godfrey as the open boat scraped its keel on the sand. “Won't be much time.”
“The spade! The spade!” shrieked Mr. Palfrey excitedly to one of the other men. “No, no. Give it to me. I shall dig myself.”
“Look the way he do dig!” exclaimed Mr. Godfrey. “He'll cut any corpse in half, spearing down like that.”
They waited patiently, watching Mr. Palfrey's feverish efforts, half-amused, half-touched.
Then Mr. Palfrey felt his spade clink against something. He threw the spade aside, and, kneeling down on the watery strip of sand, began to scrape at it with his fingers.
With a triumphant cry, he held up a necklace. The fierce red sun shone on it and it burned with all the fire of priceless rubies.
Mr. Palfrey gave a hysterical laugh. “The Channing jewels!” he shouted. “I have found them. Oh, God, at last. After all these weary days of searching.”
The men in the boat watched him, stricken. “You mean,” said Mr. Godfrey at last, “that that's what you was looking for all along? You didn't give a rap for Miss Felicity.”
But Mr. Palfrey, ecstatic with delight, turned the flashing stones this way and that.
Then a cloud covered the red sun. It took all the light out of the day. It took all the fire from the sea.
And the necklace in Mr. Palfrey's hand turned into cheap glass, as if the Cornish pixies had played some hellish trick on him.
He had betrayed himself. The men in the boat looked at him with eyes of stone.
Mr. Godfrey seized the oars and shoved off.
“You can't leave me,” shouted Mr. Palfrey. “The tide has turned.”
“Then, swim, you liddle ferret,” shouted back Mr. Godfrey.
Mr. Palfrey stood there until the boat had disappeared round the point. Then, shivering and whimpering and cursing Felicity under his breath, he began to swim.
It was as well he remembered the secret staircase-for the castle was under siege by angry locals at the front. It would be a long time before he dared poke his nose out of doors again.
On the eighth of April, Mr. Godolphin had a very odd audience with Princess Felicity of Brasnia. For he did not see her.
He was ushered into a stately drawing room by an unnerving sort of butler who fixed Dolph's tubby figure with a haughty look, and said, “Make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof,” before bowing and stalking out.
A terrifyingly massive woman, with a hand outstretched, came down the room toward him. She was dressed from head to foot in black velvet. “I am Madame Chubiski,” she announced.
Dolph bowed. “I am come to see Her Royal Highness.”
“Vot is eet you vish?” said Madame Chubiski.
“I wish to speak to Princess Felicity about it, if I may.”
“What is it?” came a light young voice from behind a carved screen in the corner. Madame Chubiski waved an imperious hand, and Dolph approached the screen cautiously.
“I am come to beg a favor, ma'am,” he said timidly. Then he thought of Martha Barchester, and his voice strengthened. “My friend, Lord Arthur Bessamy, would be deeply honored it you could manage to issue him an invitation to your rout.”
There was a long silence, and Dolph felt almost as if the temperature in the room had dropped by several degrees. He turned about and smiled winningly at Madame Chubiski, who glowered back.
At last, the princess's voice came to him very faintly from behind the screen. “Yes,” it said on a little sigh. “He may come.”
“Thank you,” said Dolph, bowing to the screen.
“You've got what you want, young man, so take your leave,” growled a robust English accent behind him. Dolph started. But there was still only Madame Chubiski in the room-who had sounded so foreign only a moment before.
But he felt he had better leave quickly before the princess changed her mind.
When he had gone, Miss Chubb said ruefully, “Did you really have to give him an invitation?”
“Yes, this way Lord Arthur will not suspect anything,” said Felicity, emerging from behind the screen. “Besides, there will be such a crush, the poor man will have difficulty in seeing me at all! And I am supposed to be dead, remember? You know, Miss Chubb, I am so tired of this silly accent I have to affect, and your own is beginning to come and go alarmingly. Why do we not start to speak proper English-and praise our good Mr. Silver for effecting the transformation?”
“Good idea,” sighed Miss Chubb. “Do you know. I live in terror of being confronted by some fool who claims to speak Brasnian!”
Chapter Seven
“I speak excellent Brasnian, Your Royal Highness,” said Lord Arthur Bessamy.
Felicity carefully concealed all the dismay she felt. Miss Chubb had made a dreadful mistake. There must be a wretched place called Brasnia after all. Around them, the glittering cream of London society ebbed and flowed in the pink and gold saloon at Chesterfield Gardens.
With a thin little smile, Felicity said, “I do not wish to speak Brasnian. It would shame my tutor, who has been at such pains to teach me excellent English.”
“You are a credit to him, ma'am,” said Lord Arthur, smiling down into her eyes. “One would suppose, to listen to you, that you had been speaking English all of your life.”
Felicity glanced nervously sideways, looking for help. But Lord Arthur was a leader of society and so was being allowed a few moments alone with her, a courtesy afforded to very few. Miss Chubb's tall, feathered headdress could be seen at the far end of the room. “She should not have left me alone for a minute,” thought Felicity, irritation now mixing with her fear.
She took a deep breath. “May I congratulate you on your forthcoming marriage, Lord Arthur?”
“Thank you,” he said stiffly. “You are well-informed.”
“I make it my business to be so.”
“Tell me, do you know much of our country?”
“No, not much.”
“You have never been to Cornwall, for example?”
“I believe I have.”
Lord Arthur leaned closer to her and murmured, “Where in Cornwall exactly?”
“Why, I arrived at Falmouth.”
“His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, the Prince Regent,” cried Spinks loudly.
Silence fell on the room. The guests parted to form two lines.
Lord Arthur bowed and moved away. Felicity began to shake. This was flying too high! She had not invited the
