David wasted no more time, except to call out, ‘Thanks awfully, birds,’ and ran on up the garden-path. He could see jays settling on the tents, and woodpeckers tapping to see if they had come to the right place, and on he ran till he came to the garden door. It was open, and he rushed up the stairs, and felt his way past the game-cupboard, for it was quite dark here, and turned the corner into the nursery passage where the flame-cats had danced.
But now there were no flame-cats here, unless one tiny glimmer of light on the wall was the remains of one, and he had to grope his way—and, oh, how long it seemed—to the end of the passage, where he remembered that the blue door was. He had left the key hanging up on a nail beside it, but now he could not remember which side it was, and as he groped for it, he knocked down the bottle which had something to do with the electric light. As it gurgled away on the floor, he remembered that he had shaken it, to shock the flame-cats and made them stop dancing, and now he felt for it at his feet, meaning to shake it, and get the electric light to flare out again, so that he might find the key of the blue door. But the stopper had come out, and it was empty, and when he shook it nothing whatever happened.
Meantime the pursuit had got much nearer, and he could hear that a lion or two, and some soldiers had come to the garden door.
‘He went in here,’ roared a lion. ‘I can smell him.’
Then the Brigadier-General spoke.
‘Bring up the machine-guns,’ he said, ‘and rake the passage from end to end. Then advance in open order.’
David heard the bullets rattling against the wall of the passage at the corner, and knew that when they had turned that, he would be exposed to their full fire again. There was no cover of any sort or kind; when once they had advanced to the corner, he had nowhere left to go, unless he could find the key of the door.
Then he heard the voice of the Brigadier-General when the firing stopped.
‘Up the stairs and right turn,’ he said. ‘Then open fire again. I’m behind you, so don’t be afraid.’
David pressed his hands to his head, and squeezed it to see if there was a single idea left in it. There was just one.