And there they still were, in that black passage behind Flora, that had led in the case of one Ugly-Wugly at least to 'a good hotel'. And the stone door was shut. And they did not know even which way to turn to it.
"If I only had some matches!" said Gerald.
"Why didn't you leave me in the dream?" Jimmy almost whimpered. "It was light there, and I was just going to have salmon and cucumber."
"I," rejoined Gerald in gloom, "was just going to have steak and fried potatoes."
The silence, and the darkness, and the earthy scent were all they had now.
"I always wondered what it would be like," said Jimmy in low, even tones, "to be buried alive. And now I know! Oh! his voice suddenly rose to a shriek, "it isn't true, it isn't! It's a dream that's what it is!"
There was a pause while you could have counted ten. Then "Yes," said Gerald bravely, through the scent and the silence and the darkness, "it's just a dream, Jimmy, old chap. We'll just hold on, and call out now and then just for the lark of the thing. But it's really only a dream, of course."
Of course, said Jimmy in the silence and the darkness and the scent of old earth.
There is a curtain, thin as gossamer, clear as glass, strong as iron, that hangs for ever between the world of magic and the world that seems to us to be real. And when once people have found one of the little weak spots in that curtain which are marked by magic rings, and amulets, and the like, almost anything may happen. Thus it is not surprising that Mabel and Kathleen, conscientiously conducting one of the dullest dolls tea-parties at which either had ever assisted, should suddenly, and both at once, have felt a strange, unreasonable, but quite irresistible desire to return instantly to the Temple of Flora even at the cost of leaving the dolls tea-service in an unwashed state, and only half the raisins eaten. They went as one has to go when the magic impulse drives one against their better judgement, against their wills almost.
And the nearer they came to the Temple of Flora, in the golden hush of the afternoon, the more certain each was that they could not possibly have done otherwise.