time, when he heard them
coming, to throw a red and green crochet antimacassar over her, and to
hide her behind an armchair.

'When they've taken me away, go down the back stairs, and try to find
the boat,' he whispered, just before they came and took him away.

And then Everilda was left alone. When everything was quiet, she said to
herself: 'Now, you mustn't cry; you must do as you're told.' And she
went down the palace back-stairs, and out through the palace kitchen
into the street.

She had never set foot in the streets before, but she had been driven
through them in a coach with four white horses, and she knew the way to
the canal.

The canal boat with the blue sails was waiting, and she would have got
to it safely enough, but she heard a rattling sound, and when she
looked she saw two boys tying an old rusty kettle to a cat's tail.

'You horrid boys!' she said; 'let poor pussy alone.'

'Not us,' said the boys.

Everilda instantly slapped them both, and they were so surprised that
they let the cat go. It scuttled and scurried off, and so did the
Princess. The boys threw stones after her and also after the cat, but
fortunately they were both very bad shots and nobody was hit.

Even then the Princess would have got safely away, but she saw a boy
sitting on a doorstep crying. So she stopped to ask what was the matter.

'I'm hungry,' said the boy, 'and father and mother are dead, and my
uncle beat me, so I'm running away----'

'Oh,' said the Princess, 'so am I. What fun! And I've got a horrid
uncle, too. You come with me, and we'll find my nurse. _She's_ running
away, too. Make haste, or it'll be too late.'

But when they got to the corner, it _was_ too late.

The revolutionary crowd caught them; they shouted 'Liberty and Soap!'
and they sent the boy to the workhouse, and they put the Princess in
prison; and a good many of them wanted to cut off her pretty little head
then and there, because they thought she would be sure to grow up horrid
like her uncle the Regent.

But all the people who had ever been inside the palace said what a nice
little girl the Princess really was, and wouldn't hear of cutting off
her darling head. So at last it was decided to get rid of her by
enchantment, and the Head Magician to the Provisional Revolutionary
Government was sent for.

'Certainly, citizens,' he said, 'I'll put her in a tower on the Forlorn
Island, in the middle of the Perilous Sea--a nice strong tower, with