"Whew!" whistled Whirlit as he leaped into the air. "A peppery Brownie, that! Served me right, however."
He found Madam Breeze almost bursting with anger, confusion, anxiety, excitement and the exertion of self-restraint.
"You imp of ingratitude!" she began, "how could you dare—"
"Madam," cried Whirlit, interrupting her, "the Captain says, with his compliments, you will please knock over the Pixie camp, tents, houses, fort and all!"
Madam's brow cleared in a moment. "That I will," she answered in her usual jovial tones. "Hie—away, my hearties! come, come now! 'Blow, ye winds, and crack your cheeks!'"
Thereupon Madam Breeze and her company fell upon the Pixie camp. The breastwork or demilune that had been woven around the outer bounds was leveled in an instant. Then the clamorous crew fell upon the circle of huts and tents that stood next within. It was not so easy work here.
"Whoop!" shouted Whirlit, as he threw himself, with full force, back foremost, against one of the broad canvas sides. "Ugh!" was the next exclamation heard from him as he bounded back like an india-rubber ball and fell sprawling among tent pins and ropes.
"Ho, ho, ho!" The merry laugh of Madam Breeze rolled out through the hurly-burly at this discomfiture of her page. "Try it again, Whirlie, it's easily done, you know! You'd make a fine base ball, now, wouldn't you? Ha, ha!"
Whirlit did try again; then Whisk and Bluster and Keener; and last of all Madam Breeze threw her round body against the tent. The ropes snapped, the walls tumbled together, and in a trice the noisy Breezes had sent ropes, canvas, and poles streaming away into the air, broken into a hundred pieces.[T]
One after another the Pixies' dens, nests, tents, huts, barns and storehouses shared the same fate at the hands of the busy wreckers. In a few moments the ruins of the camp were scattered in confused heaps upon the earth, or were floating off upon the wings of the storm. The females, or Pixinees, who with their broods of young had been left in possession of the camp, at first showed fight. But they soon saw that resistance was vain, and fled into the fort, where they hid themselves in the sheltered corners and angles, or cowered against the lee side of pebbles, leaves, clumps of grass, and the various rubbish that littered the ground.[U]