When the signal was given, the spirited Cape steeds tore away, dashing from side to side, while Madame Bertrand screamed loudly to Archambaud to stop, though without avail, until the carriage ran into a gumwood tree.
Except for the shaking up and the fright, none of the party was injured, and when the door was opened all scrambled hastily out. Nothing would induce them to intrust themselves again to the carriage and the reckless Archambaud, and though the rain was falling heavily they preferred to walk over the muddy road to Deadwood. They had nearly a mile to go, and it was especially hard for Madame Bertrand, whose baby would not be carried.
Betsy, though she knew that she herself probably looked equally absurd, could not help laughing when she saw Madame Bertrand arrayed in one of Mrs. Balcombe's dresses, half a yard too short and small in every way, which she had to borrow while her own clothes were drying.
But the ball itself was pleasant and all felt repaid for going, even though they had to walk home in the mist.
The next morning, as ever, Betsy was the victim of Napoleon's raillery.
"So you had a good time last evening, Mees Betsy. I hear you danced very well and looked well, and might have been Baroness Sturmer's younger sister, you looked so much like her."
This compliment pleased Betsy mightily, as doubtless Napoleon realized, for the little English girl thought Baroness Sturmer, wife of the Austrian Commissioner, the prettiest woman she had ever seen.
Not long after breakfast the visitors from The Briars and several from Longwood went to the town and to the _Newcastle_ in the bay, on board of which Sir Pultney and Lady Malcom were to give a breakfast in honor of Lord Amherst.
When next the sisters visited Longwood, "Ah, Mees Betsee," cried Napoleon, "I have heard great stories of you. You locked up little Miss P. the other day, while the other ladies were being shipped over the side of the frigate to return to shore. When they missed her Captain G. had to go back to rescue her."
As Betsy did not deny this charge, Napoleon, turning to her father, exclaimed:
"Indeed I must," responded Betsy's father gravely.
"But I have been punished enough," protested Betsy. "Lady Lowe scolded me, too, and desired me to use my reason and not to be childish. I wondered at her lack of perception in giving me credit for what I never possessed. But I did admire Lord Amherst," she added, a few minutes later.