But he found he, too, had a beak, with which he could do nothing but peck. They stood staring at each other's beaks. They did not yet know that the beaks were invisible to all save themselves and the birds.
They sat down on their heels like Turkish princes, and their sobs went on and on, sounding like the lament of thousands of insects, and still the green hedges around them went on growing, till it seemed that the two poor little people were at the bottom of a profound green funnel, brimming with darkness, in which their moaning sounded like the wind in the chimney of a winter's night.
"Oh, oh, my Redy, we're in a pretty pass!" murmured Smaly, and Redy knew that he was feeling almost mad with fright, so that at once she felt mad with fright also. Now Redy had heard that mad people sing and dance, and so she at once began to do both, dragging Smaly along with her. They sang and danced till they had no breath left, and then they wanted to drop down and rest, but found they had to keep on and on in spite of themselves. The dance of terror, and the song with which their little little sobs and moans mingled, continued there at the bottom of the green funnel. There was more noise than there is at midday in Oxford Circus.
They sang and danced
The pepper from the latch of the door began to burn again in Smaly's mouth, and reminded him that after all there was a door out of this horrible place. He began to feel about for it in the darkness. When he found it he uttered a sharp little cry, which, like the moans and the singing, refused to die away, but went on echoing in the green funnel, so that by now there was a noise like a tempest, for all the world as though the whole sea had been imprisoned in a box—and a box too small for it.
Smaly uttered this cry because he had discovered that the latch was once more in its place on the door, although Smaly had thrown it far away after biting it. Redy's hinge also was back in its place. Neither the latch nor the hinge bore any trace of having been bitten, but felt smooth and solid to the fingers.
Neither the Latch nor the Hinge bore any trace of having been bitten