‘Oh yes, he will; let’s go and ask him.’
But at that moment a black shadow came across the sun, and the swans, with a terrified ‘honk, honk,’ darted across the water to hide themselves in the reeds on the other side of the river, churning dark tracks in the purple of the sunlit water’s glassy calmness.
‘Oh dear! oh dear! it’s a boggles, and it’s coming this way,’ cried the nurse.
‘But what is a boggles, nurse?’
‘Oh dear, it’s coming! Come into the house and I’ll tell you—come.’
‘Not until you tell me what a boggles is.’
The nurse perforce gave in.
‘A boggles is a thing with a hooked beak and a squeaky voice, with hair like snakes in corkscrews; and it haunts houses and carries off things; and when it once gets in it never leaves again—oh dear, it’s on us! Oh-h-h!’
Her cries only made the thing see them sooner. It was only an eagle, not a boggles; but it was on the look-out for food, and the sun shining on the Princess’s hair had caught its eyes, and in spite of the cries of the nurse it swooped down, and, seizing the Princess in its claws, began to carry her off. The nurse, however, held on to her valiantly, screaming all the while for help; but the eagle had the best of it after all, for it carried up, not only the Princess, but the nurse also.