“Keep in the shadows; don’t expose yourself, for God’s sake!” he whispered, as we stole onward.
We arrived among the thickets of dense bamboos growing by the wooden gate that was the side entrance to the palace. We stood perfectly still and waited. O’Hara gave a low whistle. Our hearts beat like muffled drums as we stood there. I looked at the dim outline of the palace. All was silent, phantom-like, in the rising moonlight. Only one small light flickered in the little latticed window-hole by the main entrance.
“What’s that light?” quoth I in a hushed voice.
“It’s where the Queen sleeps,” replied my pal.
“Is it really?” I whispered, as I thought in some mad way of the old romantic novels that I had read in my schooldays.
Yes, and there was I, sure enough, with a mad Irishman, outside a barbarian’s palace, awaiting the psychological moment to seize a heathen princess!
We must have stood there for half an hour before O’Hara gave the fourth whistle and said, “She’s being watched, that’s what it is; otherwise, begorra, she’d have come out of that gate before now.”
“What shall we do now?” said I, feeling fit for any emergency as the spirit commenced to take effect. The romance of the whole situation began to bubble, to thrill in my soul. Indeed, I had become as enthusiastic as O’Hara over the prospective elopement of Fae Fae.
“Old pal,” said he, “I’m going into the palace to seize her; that’s what I’m going to do!”
“Good Lord, really!” said I, as visions arose of dramatic scenes that might ensue when we got into that eerie-looking, big wooden building.
“Won’t they hear us—and club us?” said I.
“Not they! I’ve been in the palace before by night; I know where Fae Fae sleeps, and it’s no hard job to find her.”
“You do, do you!” thought I. Then O’Hara began to creep down the orange grove and, like some obsequious shadow, I followed.
Not a sound broke the primeval stillness as we curved round the small track that led to the main entrance of the palace. At that very moment a night bird, somewhere up in the mangroves, burst into song. It gave a sharp scream as we passed like shadows beneath the trees, and then flapped away. We both leapt back into the deeper gloom. Our hearts nearly stopped, for lo! the bushy head of some high chief suddenly poked out of the half-open gate at the main entrance. We watched that big mop-head and fierce-looking face turn to the right and left, peer into the moonlight a moment, then we saw it withdrawn from view.