"Aye, aye," answered Whisk, "suppose we fling him over the horns of the moon, and let him—"
"Let him stick there," cried Whirlit, finishing the sentence. Whereat the trio pounced pell-mell upon the Pixie chief.
"Very well, my lads," exclaimed Madam Breeze, "you're quite welcome to a monopoly of the old beast. Phooh! How he smells of poison! He well nigh takes my breath. Fort smashing suits me better." With these words she threw herself against the Agalena wing of Fort Spinder. Every cord and canvas in it shook with the violence of the onset. But it was unbroken. Again and again the stout Elf cast herself against the walls; the cords creaked and seemed about to part, but so elastic were they that they swayed inward with a heavy surge and then back again. The weeds, blades of grass and twigs to which the ropes and beams were fastened bent under the weight of the blast, but were unbroken.
All this time Spite was struggling with the three Elves. They pinched his skin, they plucked at his cheek, mouth and nostrils. They almost blinded him with blasts which they cast full into his eyes. They pulled his clothes, and held him by the limbs. But he kept on his path. Stoutly, stubbornly he fought his way step by step until he stood at last before the gate of the fort. He was seen at once, and a dozen of the inmates ran forward to admit him.
"Not for your lives!" he shouted. "Don't leave a crack open, if you can help it, for these blusterers to enter. It would be ruin to open the gate."
He looked around him. Hide and his party were still a goodly distance away. He could hear above the voices of the storm the rousing cheers of the Brownies as they pressed more and more closely upon Heady, who was doggedly giving way, disputing every inch of ground. Whirlit, Whisk and Keener had left him, at the beck of Madam Breeze, and now joined that lusty Elf in their assaults upon Fort Spinder.
"What is done, must be done quickly," thought Spite. "May all the furies seize the old monster! She has broken a breach in the roof. See! the garrison, aided by the women and children, are doing bravely. There; that villain Keener has cut his way to the inside of Fort Agalena. And there go Whisk and Whirlit after him. How the walls sway back and forth! The roof bulges upward. The reprobates! They are trying to break through the roof. If they do that and Madam Breeze gets in, all is lost; away will go the whole building with a crash. What shall I do? If we could only anchor the roof! But there's no ballast about. Hide and his men are far away yet. Confusion seize them! Why aren't they here now?"
It was a trying moment for the interests of the Pixies. All seemed to turn upon the fate of the fort; and that to depend upon one person. But that person was Spite the Spy, and he had never yet been wholly without resources. Hopeless as the case appeared, he was equal to the emergency. He would save the fort if it could be saved! He jumped from the weed-top which he had mounted for better observation, and plunged into the midst of the ruins of the camp. He stopped before a pebble almost the size of his own body.
"That will do, I think," he muttered. He seized the stone, twisted a cable around it, and dragged it away toward the fort. It was but a moment's work to climb upon an overhanging weed, fasten the cable to a branch and swing the stone over upon the roof. The canvas sheet sank downward under the pebble's weight. Spite watched it with keen interest. The elastic stuff swayed upward and downward several times, and seemed about to settle firmly, when Whirlit leaped upward against it with his strong shoulders. The pebble flew off the roof, spinning through the air close to the head of the Pixie chief, who looked on from his perch among the leaves.
"Failure!" muttered Spite.