The Stolen Lake Read Online Free

passed her the bottle.
    "What if you don't?" inquired Dido, industriously painting away at her toes.
    "Cockroaches come into bed and nibble; you wake up next day with half a dozen toes missing."
    "Oh."
    "Good night, Miss Dido," said Holystone, and took the bottle from her.
    "Mr. Holy, Silver Taffy was in your pantry—why? What'd he come there for?"
    "He came to steal the pigeon," Mr. Holystone replied. Dido could feel anger beneath his calm.
    "The pigeon? What for? To
eat?
"
    "No, no. He sent it off—Mr. Multiple saw him toss it over the side."
    "With a message? Who's he want to send a message to?"
    "How can we tell? To some of his piratical friends, maybe."
    Frowning to himself, Mr. Holystone withdrew, and closed the door.
    Dido went back to sleep, and dreamed of hairy cockroaches, bigger than horses, with tusks thirty feet long.

2
    Even with the added power of her steam screw, it took the
Thrush
a week to make her way down the coast of Roman America as far as Tenby. For three days, while they were crossing the equator, the weather became outrageously hot, and, as Mr. Holystone had prophesied, cockroaches came on board in large numbers. They were a great nuisance, turning up in wholly unsuitable places: the crow's nest, the captain's bath, the compass, and the quartermaster's molasses jar.
    Dido had a busy and aggravating week.
    "Love a duck! Why did I ever let myself in for this lay?" she grumbled, when obliged by the exacting Mr. Holystone to walk up and down outside the wardroom door with a copy of the heavy King's Regulations balanced on her head, in order to acquire a more dignified and ladylike posture.
    "Plenty of girls would give their eyeteeth to meet a queen," observed Mr. Holystone. He was sitting in his galley, so that he could keep an eye on her through the open door, while he stuffed half a dozen flying fish with a mixture of minced barnacles and powdered hardtack. "When I did my butler's training in London there was a young ladies' finishing school in the same building. All the girls talked about was the day when they would make their curtsy before His Majesty King James III."
    "Finishing school?" growled Dido. "That's a right good name for it. It's liable to finish
me,
I can tell you."
    "Now curtsy," said Mr. Holystone calmly. "Do not let the King's Regulations slip off your head. Point the right toe—swing the leg slowly to the side, then back—bend the left knee—hands move slowly backwards, spreading the fingers wide—"
    The King's Regulations thudded to the floor, narrowly missing the feet of the first lieutenant, a fair-haired young man with a long, earnest face, who came by at that moment. He gave Dido a sympathetic grin, and went into the captain's cabin, where they heard him reporting:
    "Thirteen volcanoes sighted ahead on the starb'd bow, sir."
    "Thank you, Mr. Windward. You may give the order to slacken sail. We shall heave to, a safe distance out to sea from the port of Tenby, in case the state of hostility between New Cumbria and its neighbor should have worsened. I hope to receive further information and instructions from the British agent in Tenby."
    "Ay, ay, sir." Lieutenant Windward saluted and returned on deck.
    Dido replaced the King's Regulations on her head.
    She pointed her right toe and announced, "How do you do, Your Majesty?" Then she shakily lowered herself on a bent left knee, continuing, "It was kind of you to invite me to your palace.... Oh, fish guts!" as the heavy book crashed to the floor once more.
    "You had better come in here," said Mr. Holystone, "and practice taking tea. Thumb and three fingers together on the handle—small finger extended.... Good. Let me hear your tea table conversation."
    "No sugar, thank you, Your Majesty. Merely a drop of cream. There; that is just as I like it. Pray, ma'am, from which Tradesman do you obtain your tay?"
    "No, Dido,
no!
Not 'Pry, from which tridesman dew yew obtine yer tie?' 'From which
place
do you
obtain
your
tay?
'"
    "From