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Wet Magic "The shell will drag him down," said the Princess; "and now I must go and get a fresh shield. I wish I knew where the next attack would be delivered."

They sank slowly through the water.

"I wonder where Reuben is?" said Bernard.

"Oh, he's quite safe," said the Princess. "The Boy Scouts don't go outside the walls—they just do a good turn for anybody who wants it, you know—and help the kind Soles to look after the wounded."

They had reached the great flooded garden again and turned toward the Palace, and as they went a Sea Urchin shell suddenly rose from behind one of the clipped hedges—a Sea Urchin shell and behind it a long tail.

The shell was raised, and the face under it was Reuben's.

"Hi, Princess!" he shouted. "I've been looking for you everywhere. We've been scouting. I got a lot of seaweed, and they thought I was nothing but seaweed; and so I got quite close to the enemy."

"It was very rash," said the Princess severely.

"The others don't think so," he said, a little hurt. "They began by saying I was only an irregular Sea Urchin, because I've got this jolly tail"—he gave it a merry wag—"and they called me Spatangus, and names like that. But they've made me their General now—General Echinus. I'm a regular now, and no mistake, and what I was going to say is the enemy is going to attack the North Tower in force in half an hour."

"You good boy," said the Princess. I do believe if it hadn't been for his Sea Urchin's uniform she would have kissed him. "You're splendid. You're a hero. If you could do it safely—there's heaps of seaweed—could you find out if there's any danger from the Book People? You know—the ones in the cave. It's always been our fear 104