Baby Jane's Mission Part 10

'Well,' said he, 'if they surprise their own Colonel, they're bound to surprise the enemy much more!'

Breakfast being ended, the manoeuvres commenced. Baby Jane did not take part herself, but, sitting beneath a palm upon a little knoll, with the deepest interest she watched her regiments wheel and turn and form into columns and squares before her.

'If it doesn't frighten that Black Mountain Band,' thought she, 'to see my army doing these odd things on the sand, they _must_ be brave!' But here her reflections were painfully interrupted.

The second regiment on the right, a little brown regiment, that had been performing brilliantly, though rather noisily, and had just at that moment formed an elegant hollow square, suddenly broke up, and, with deafening yells, piled itself in a heap, like a swarm of bees, upon its Colonel.

Then Mary Carmichael, with a terrified face, came galloping up to Baby Jane, and pulling up on her haunches, panted out the words:

'The Flanagans have mutinied!'

Baby Jane sprang upon her back, and galloped her across the desert straight at the shrieking pile of monkeys. At her approach they fell apart, and leaving their Colonel sitting crushed and forlorn, they rushed at her with a volley of explanations.

'Ah, the spalpeen! He said his poor ould father was a standing disgrace to the regiment, and, as he couldn't look decent on his feet, he'd make him do his drills on his head. And as for his mother, poor ould soul, he's made her a drummer-boy!'

Clearly Patsey had been misusing his military authority to get even with his parents for past thrashings, and it took some time before Baby Jane, holding the bruised Colonel in her arms, could make peace between him and his rebellious regiment. She had to be very severe with them.

'You're not a bit of good as infantry,' she said. 'Just fancy a regiment that ought to be stretched out in a thin red--I mean brown--line, piled in a heap on top of the Colonel! No, you are not infantry any more--you're artillery, and will have to stand in rows and throw cocoa-nuts for cannon-b.a.l.l.s.'

At this moment Sammy came up, and he was charmed with the idea.

'What ho!' he cried. 'Splendid! Talk of batteries of four-inch field-guns! Just wait till those Black Mountaineers see our batteries of four-inch field-monkeys!'

It was the Rabbit's regiment of scouts that was being drilled next to the Flanagans, but he allowed them all to 'stand at ease' to watch the disgrace of his friend Patsey, and professed to think their new t.i.tle exceedingly funny.

'Oh, who'd be a four-inch field-monkey?' he squeaked, and he slapped his knees and laughed till the tears ran down his whiskers.

'Well,' said Baby Jane, turning sharply upon him, 'you seem very pleased with yourself, but what can _your_ regiment do?'

The Rabbit dried his tears with his paw. 'Do?' he said shrilly. 'Why, look at this!'

Truly it was magnificent. Squatting still as statues, at the word of command five hundred bunnies c.o.c.ked their thousand ears in unison.

'Up--down--right--left!'

'And that's nothing,' said the Rabbit calmly; 'they can do the same with their tails!'

'Wonderful!' said Baby Jane. 'And now, as Sammy says that Miss Crocodile's regiment, and the Lion's, and the Bear's have been doing wonderful things, every one has done a good morning's work----'

'Except the four-inch field-monkeys,' interrupted the Rabbit spitefully.

'And drill is over for the day,' went on Baby Jane. 'This afternoon my army shall sit down and keep cool and see a military tournament.'

As to the beginning of this tournament there was a good deal of puzzling and trouble, for the army sent a solemn deputation, headed by Miss Crocodile and Mary Carmichael, to Baby Jane during dinner to pray that proceedings might open with a war-dance.

Now Baby Jane had not the least idea how a war-dance went, and, after a long consultation with Sammy, she had to tell the deputation so.

'Do you know how it goes yourselves?' she asked.

Miss Crocodile said the n.i.g.g.e.rs always did it before they went out collecting missionaries. You jumped up and down and waved sticks and shouted. Here Miss Crocodile made a few shy steps to ill.u.s.trate her meaning.

'Of course,' said Baby Jane, upon whom a light had dawned. 'An Irish jig! The very thing! I danced it in a play once, and I will show you.

Come along. What fun!'

It required but little practice, and, with two pretty hoods for the ladies and a couple of sprigs of blackthorn for the gentlemen, they were presently equipped and ready to dance before the army, which was now spread out in a huge semicircle facing the open desert and the distant Black Mountains. And they might have stepped straight from the fair at Coleraine, for the Lion looked the broth of a boy, and even the Bear threw off his Scottish manner and was for the time a roaring blade; while as for Mary and Miss Crocodile, no saucier colleens ever peeped from beneath a hood.

Baby Jane, flushed and smiling, holding a bit or frock in each hand, led them into the middle.

'Now,' she whispered over her shoulder, 'one--two--three--whistle!'

Then to the romping air of 'St. Patrick's Day in the Morning' five light figures tripped it gaily up and down, every footfall pat to a note. Now, with a bang and a yell, dancing defiance at one another, the boys met in the middle, each with his lady under his lee. Then, shooting roguish glances right and left, Miss Crocodile and Mary, hand-in-hand, would trip between the warlike ones and take the floor. And the army marked time with whoops that must have echoed in the distant mountains.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A little mocking measure.]

It was glorious--worth a month of life--or at any rate it would have been if the Rabbit and Patsey had not been observed dancing a little mocking measure of their own device about twenty yards from the real dancers.

Now it is a difficult thing to look thoroughly arch and roguish while some one is imitating you, and though Mary and Miss Crocodile struggled fiercely to keep up their saucy smile, they could not help casting an occasional glance of bitterness and rage at the Rabbit and Patsey, who were mincing and curvetting with an artless coquetry twice as winning as their own.

They could barely restrain themselves until the dance had ended in a roar of applause, and then, cutting short their graceful curtsey of acknowledgment in the middle, they sprang after the little beasts, and, with hoods flying out behind, chivied them round and round until they took refuge in the skirts of Baby Jane, who had hardly noticed the mocking dance, and thought that the chivying was merely an innocent romp.

But Miss Crocodile was not to be put off, and a.s.suming a pleasant smile, she went up to Baby Jane and suggested a playful combat with wooden broadswords between herself and Patsey. It seemed rather a good idea, and as Patsey raised no objection, it was arranged to take place at once.

Patsey appeared first in the arena, and there he sat on his sword, looking very small and innocent, like a little brown b.u.mble-bee roosting on a twig. Miss Crocodile soon followed, with a nasty smile on her lips.

(A three-inch mouth can display a great deal of nastiness; consider, then, the possibilities of a three-foot mouth!) She wasted no time, and rushing up, swung her sword to knock the b.u.mble-bee off its twig, but as the sword reached Patsey, he fluttered a yard into the air, and, before Miss Crocodile could recover herself, his weapon had whistled twice round his head and landed--_thwack!_--upon her tenderest row of teeth.

It was cruelly painful, and Miss Crocodile rolled on the ground and wept aloud, while Patsey skipped chuckling round her, until Baby Jane caught him and cuffed him severely. If he could not play without being rough, she said, he should not play at all. She was very fond of little Patsey, but felt that she must be a stern mother to him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: He fluttered a yard in the air.]

Now the Lion had also observed Patsey and the Rabbit's little mocking dance, so when the Piccaninny, armed with a lance, was mounted on his back to engage the Rabbit, who had a sword and rode pick-a-back on Patsey, he thought it a good opportunity of serving out a little stern justice on that couple.

It was arranged that the Piccaninny and the Rabbit were to charge together from a distance and see which could unhorse the other. The Lion's idea was to take no notice of the sword-and-lance business, but simply to rush at the offending couple, knock them head-over-heels and generally maul them. But the Rabbit also had his notions, and contrived that the course should pa.s.s close to a fox-hole, of which there were several around.

'Nothing like arranging your port in case of a storm,' he remarked to Patsey.

Well, the course was cleared and the signal given--'Charge!' With a roar and a rush the Lion came thundering down the line, and, to the admiration of the whole army, the Rabbit went bravely out to meet him.

But he was watching the Lion's face keenly, and at the last moment he caught a gleam in his eye. At that instant they were pa.s.sing the fox-hole, and the Lion was but a yard away.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Lion came thundering down the line.]

'Down, Monkey!' shrieked the Rabbit, and down the hole they shot together feet foremost. The Lion was astounded at the mysterious disappearance of the couple, and in his struggles to pull up he caught his foot in the Piccaninny's lance, shot that child twenty yards away, and himself came b.u.mp on his chin. He got up slowly, trying to retain his dignity, and looked haughtily round.

Two little smiling faces were regarding him from over the edge of the hole. They nodded pleasantly to him.

'How's your Auntie Lou?' asked the Rabbit, as if to break the ice.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Two little smiling faces were regarding him.]

The Lion had no Auntie Lou, and he stared stonily in front of him without reply. There was a long pause, and then the Rabbit inquired:

'Say, Mister, are you going to be rough if we come up?'