THEY SPREAD OUT LONG FILMY WINGS.
They were both very sorry, and they sat still for a minute or two, for they were much too tired to stir; and then shooting-stars began to appear in all directions. The fairy bat had told his friends and relations, and they were coming. One fell at Mopsa’s feet, another in her lap; more, more, all about, behind, before, and over them. And they spread out long filmy wings, some of them a yard long, till Jack and Mopsa seemed to be enclosed in a perfect network of the rays of shooting-stars, and they were both a good deal frightened. Fifty or sixty shooting-stars, with black eyes that could stare, were enough, they thought, to frighten anybody.
“If we had anything to sit upon,” said Mopsa, “they could carry us over the pass.” She had no sooner spoken than the largest of the bats bit off one of his own long wings, and laid it at Mopsa’s feet. It did not seem to matter much to him that he had parted with it, for he shot out another wing directly, just as a comet shoots out a ray of light sometimes, when it approaches the sun.
Mopsa thanked the shooting fairy, and, taking the wing, began to stretch it, till it was large enough for her and Jack to sit upon. Then all the shooting fairies came round it, took its edges in their mouths, and began to fly away with it over the mountains. They went slowly, for Jack and Mopsa were heavy, and they flew very low, resting now and then; but in the course of time they carried the wing over the pass, and half-way down the other side. Then the sun came up; and the moment he appeared all their lovely apricot-coloured light was gone, and they only looked like common bats, such as you can see every evening.
They set down Jack and Mopsa, folded up their long wings, and hung down their heads.
Mopsa thanked them, and said they had been useful; but still they looked ashamed, and crept into little corners and crevices of the rock, to hide.
CHAPTER XIV
REEDS AND RUSHES
“’Tis merry, ’tis merry in Fairyland,