At the very same moment, Elephant gave a great “swish” with his trunk and away went the balloons through the space at the eaves.
“There they go!” shouted Monkey. “Up, up, up! Goodness, how they’re sailing! Oh! they’ve caught in a tree! No, they haven’t! Now the east wind has them again! Once more they’re off! They’re going higher and higher! And they’re bound straight for the hill! Yes, straight for the brow of the hill!”
And so, from his perch, Monkey described every inch of the flight until, to the great relief of the animals who were grouped down below, he announced that the balloons had passed over the hill.
Indeed the word came in good time, for just then there followed a quick shout from Dan, crying, “Get back to your places as fast as you can!”
Then came a wild scurrying to right and to left.
“Now, I’ll bid you good night,” said Diggeldy Dan, when the very last door had been locked. “And to-morrow we’ll learn if we were right when we guessed that the one we have written makes her home in the west.”
CHAPTER VII
IN WHICH THE ANIMALS MEET WITH A DISAPPOINTMENT AND A SURPRISE AND A STORY IS BEGUN
Now, had the keepers who slept so soundly at the foot of the big blue poles in the great menagerie tent suddenly wakened at a little after half-past twilight on the evening following that which saw the balloons go sailing over the hill, they no doubt would have rubbed their eyes, pinched themselves and then exclaimed:
“Well, of all things! Wherever can those animals be?”
But, of course, they did nothing of the kind, for the very good reason that not a single one of them so much as opened one eye. Though, if they had, where do you suppose they would have found all their charges? Away over behind the red and gold cages.