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Updated: May 2, 2025
Bija made endless cowslip balls out of the beautiful rose-pink primulas, while Roy and Mirak, following the shepherds' boys, came back with their hands full of young rhubarb shoots and green fern croziers, which they ate like asparagus.
Which was true; for the old house of three stories which they now inhabited was full of little rooms leading one out of the other like a rabbit-warren. And if there was no furniture in them, so much the better for the children's games of "I espy" and "Touch who Touch can." For Bija and Mirak played such games with infinite zest.
"I won't have it, Mirak," she would say with a stamp of her little foot; "you shall not break my doll's head just because you want to." So Prince Akbar, who was full of sound common sense, began to think she had reason on her side; and this was of great advantage to him, for with Head-nurse, and Foster-mother and the others, he stood a great chance of being spoiled.
What he did was to set the door wide, cut a narrow tunnel with his sword as far as he could reach in the banked-up snow, and thrust a bit of food in its farther end. Then Roy brought Tumbu and said: "Fetch it out, good dog! fetch it out!" while Mirak and Bija looked on delightedly, calling, "Good dog! Dig it out! dig it out!"
Mirak! and Bija for I shall call you naught else since they are sweet kindly names, better than fine sounding titles this very afternoon ye shall come with me to the garden he loved, and where his earthly form lies at rest, and lay flowers on his grave for thanks. Since he loved flowers as he loved everything."
It was a strange, chill world which they saw. Far as the eye could reach, nothing but snow, the air frosty and sharp, though the sun was shining once more. Mirak was keen to snowball, but Roy would not hear of it; the snow was melting with the faint heat of the mid-day sun, he said, and a step might make the frost film break, and down into the powdery drift they might go, never to come up again.
Of course Mirak forgot all about her in his joy at seeing Dearest-Lady and Roy, and it was some time before the former could ask the attendant how the cat had managed to get there. "Highness," said the woman, "it is impossible to keep cats out if they want to come in. She appeared at the window three times, and three times I put her downstairs. Then I gave in. It is no use quarrelling with cats."
And she laughed over their doings, and wept over Old Faithful's death, while Bija and Mirak sat cuddled up close beside her, listening also and enjoying the tale of their own adventures as if they had happened to other children! "Surely," she said softly when Head-nurse ended, "my dearest brother on whom be peace must have protected them! Lo!
"Don't you think he might be greedy just to help you?" suggested Bija mournfully; but after thinking a little she clapped her hands. "I have it, Mirak! If his name was on it that would do! I think I could write 'Ba-ba. It's only the two first letters, you see, and I know them; and you could prick yourself for some blood to write with, and I could use my little finger as a pen.
"Let be, boy!" said Foster-father; "the hot air from within, rising through the tunnel, will melt the sides by degrees. To-morrow will see it large enough for you, at any rate, to pass through." And so it proved. Not next day, but the day after, not only Roy, but Mirak and Bija, had managed to climb up to the outer world by the notches which Roy cut in the snow walls.
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