The Other Side of the Sun Part 13

"Now you have satisfied your hunger," continued the captain, "I will order you to be taken upstairs to the dungeon."

"Upstairs!" exclaimed Dimples. "What a funny place for a dungeon!"

"Funny? Not in the least!" said the captain, severely. "In a palace of this kind you must take the rooms as you find them. You will find the dungeon squeezed between the drawing-room and the kitchen, at the very top of the left-hand tower. There you will have to stop until the King comes."

"Who is the King?" asked Dimples, curiously.

Before the toy captain had time to answer, the band of the regiment struck up an inspiriting march. To be sure, there were only two wooden drummer boys and two wooden trumpeters, of whom one had lost his trumpet and was therefore obliged to blow continually through his stiffened fingers; but for all that they made quite a cheerful noise, and in the middle of it the King mounted the steps and entered the palace.

"Hurrah! The King! It is the King!" shouted the whole regiment in twenty wooden voices.

"The King!" repeated Dimples. "Why, it is the Prince!"

"Don't talk nonsense," said the captain, gruffly. "Do you suppose we would allow ourselves to be commanded by a mere Prince? This is a real King, I can tell you, though he isn't made of wood, more's the pity!"

And when Dimples saw the dignified way in which the little King walked into the palace, she could not help agreeing that he was a very real King. Indeed, she found it difficult to believe that he was nothing but her playfellow, the Prince Picotee, for never before had she seen him look so happy and so triumphant. There was no doubt that the little King had found his kingdom; and Dimples, remembering that she was really his prisoner, began to wish that she had not teased him so much about his toy palace and his toy soldiers. But the King did not even see her; he walked straight into the great hall and then stood still and drew a long breath of satisfaction.

"It is the most wonderful palace that ever was built," he murmured to himself; "it is much, much more wonderful than I thought."

Then his eyes fell upon Dimples, who was trying to hide behind the stiff figure of the toy captain, on the bottom brick of all.

"What is that girl doing in my palace?" asked the King, frowning.

"Please your Majesty, it is your Majesty's prisoner," answered the captain,--"she is waiting for your Majesty to decide on her punishment."

"What has the prisoner done?" asked the King in as dignified a manner as he could a.s.sume, considering that he stood on a tottering brick at the edge of the abyss in which the captain and his prisoner awaited him.

"Please your Majesty, she was heard to say that your Majesty's army was not a real army, and that I, your Majesty,--_I_ was nothing but a toy soldier!" said the captain; and he again shook with anger from head to foot, which, after all, was the only way he could shake, because he was made all in one piece.

"Send the prisoner here," commanded the King. "It is not safe to keep a prisoner on the bottom brick--especially when she is a girl."

So Dimples, wis.h.i.+ng from the bottom of her heart that the little playfellow she had teased had not been suddenly changed into a king, clambered up again into the hall.

"Prince Picotee," she said in an anxious undertone, as soon as she was near him, "I do think it is a real palace now, I do really!"

"Why, it's only Dimples!" exclaimed the King, and he nearly tumbled off the edge of the floor in his surprise. Then he remembered that he was a king, and tried to become dignified again, which, of course, was exceedingly difficult now that the Prime Minister's daughter was there to see. As for Dimples, she had not played with the Prince all her life for nothing, and she quite ceased to be frightened of him as soon as she came face to face with him.

"If you let that nasty captain punish me, I'll tell them all you are only a little boy and not a king at all," she whispered; and her round little face twinkled with merriment.

The King wavered. "I always said I would have no girls in my palace," he murmured sorrowfully.

"Will you promise?" persisted Dimples.

The King avoided her eyes. It was very hard not to give in and smile too, when Dimples looked like that. After all, he reflected, if Dimples was a girl and did not understand things properly, she made an excellent playfellow; and the most wonderful palace in the world might grow a little dull if there were only wooden soldiers to share it with. So the King made up his mind, and took the prisoner by one hand and waved his other in a royal manner to the captain.

"I will talk it over with the prisoner," he announced, "so do not let us be disturbed. And you need not take any more prisoners without consulting me," he added hastily, for he really feared that his nurse might be the next prisoner, and then, where would be the fun of being a king at all?

"Now, let us go and explore your palace," said Dimples, impatiently; and the captain was left on the bottom brick to get over his disappointment.

It would be impossible to describe how the two children wandered over the fairy palace that the Prince had built; how they climbed from one floor to another; how they dropped from arch to pillar; how they wound their way in and out of delightful pa.s.sages, finding fresh secret rooms as they went; how from one window they looked down on the vast nursery tableland and from another caught a glimpse of the towering rocking-horse; how they quite forgot they were King and prisoner, and stood at last, hand in hand, on the battlements of the highest tower and told each other what fun it was to play in a real fairy palace.

The toy captain, however, had not forgotten anything; and when he saw them talking in this familiar manner on the battlements--which he could easily do from his position on the bottom brick, so cleverly was this wonderful palace built--he felt it was high time to interfere.

"Has your Majesty decided how to punish the prisoner?" asked the toy captain, holding himself in his very stiffest manner and raising his voice sufficiently to be heard on the battlements.

The King looked at the prisoner, and the prisoner laughed at the King.

"Well," said Dimples, demurely, "_has_ your Majesty made up his mind?"

"Oh, _don't_!" whispered his Majesty, crossly. "You know I can't behave like a king if you laugh at me!" Then he folded his arms and looked down at the captain. "I have decided not to punish the prisoner at all," he said solemnly.

"What!" cried the captain, furiously. "You are not going to punish the prisoner at all?"

"No," said his Majesty, growing bolder; "and what is more, I am going to have you beheaded for interfering in the King's private affairs!"

Even Dimples felt a little nervous when she saw the look that crept over the captain's face.

"Oh, dear," she whispered to the Prince, "that is how he looked yesterday when I said he wasn't real. Would it not be wiser to make friends with him?"

But her little playfellow was looking as he had looked when he first entered his palace. "A king," he said grandly, "makes neither friends nor enemies. The captain is only my toy, and I can do as I will with him."

The captain's fury knew no bounds when he overheard this. "That is what comes of having a king who is not made of wood," he said. "But you have forgotten one thing, your Majesty!"

"And what is that?" asked the King, smiling.

"The bottom brick," said the toy captain, as he stooped and pulled it out.

Truly, there had never been such a shatter and a clatter and a tumble as when the toy captain pulled out the bottom brick of the Prince's palace!

And in the midst of it all the children felt themselves falling and falling and falling. And louder than it all sounded the mocking laughter of the toy captain.

"Some people would say it was only a dream," observed Prince Picotee, the next morning, as they stood over the ruins on the nursery floor.

"It can't have been a dream," answered Dimples, who was always practical, "because here is the head of the toy captain."

"And here," added the Prince, bending down, "is his body. So he _was_ beheaded after all!"

"I wish," sighed Dimples, "that it could all come over again."

"It will some day," the Prince a.s.sured her, "when I am King and have built another palace like this one."

"But I shall not be there," pouted Dimples, "because you won't have any girls in your palace."

Prince Picotee kicked the headless captain about the floor thoughtfully.

"Well, I'm not quite sure," he said, growing a little red. "Perhaps I'll have one girl."

"Will you?" laughed Dimples. "But what if she pulls down your wonderful palace?"