So far its simple-minded inhabitants and the suite of the princess were content with the socialist explanation of her disappearance; and three counties round were being searched by active policemen on bicycles for some one who had seen a suspicious motor-car containing Socialists and a princess.

It was the general belief that she had been chloroformed and abducted through her bedroom window.
With admirable gravity the Twins discussed with Wiggins the probabilities of their success and of the recovery of the princess, the routes by which the Socialists might have carried her off, and the towns in which the lair to which they had taken her might be.

At the end of half an hour of it the princess came out of her cave, her eyes, very bright with sleep, blinking in the sunlight.
Wiggins cried out in surprise; and the Twins laughed joyfully.
Wiggins greeted the princess politely; and then he said reproachfully: "You might have told me that she was coming here." "You ought to have known as soon as you heard she was missing," said Erebus sternly.
"So I should, if I'd known you knew her at all," said Wiggins.
"That's what nobody knows," said Erebus triumphantly.
"And look here: she's here incognita," said the Terror.

"She's taken the traveling name of Lady Rowington; and she's not the princess at all.

So if you're asked if the princess is here, you can truthfully say she isn't." "Of course--I see.