"Now, sit fast!" cried the Mannikin; and Peter had hardly seized the ears of the mouse (for want of reins), when his new steed ran away with him under the bed.
Then all of a sudden it became quite dark.
"Where are we?" cried Peter, for the mouse galloped on, and Peter was getting frightened.
"We are in the cellar," the voice of the Parsnip-man replied at his side. "Don't be frightened; it will be light again in a minute or two."
Accordingly, in a few moments, Peter could see all around him. They had emerged from the cellar, and were now in the street. The wind had fallen, and there was a dead calm. The street-lamps were burning with a somewhat dim light, however.
Peter could now plainly see the form of the little Parsnip-man riding beside him. The mice scampered on and on.
A watchman was standing in the doorway of a house. His halberd reposed against the wall beside him. Probably the watchman himself was reposing, for he never moved when the mice and their riders went by. They rode to the end of the street, and there, before an old deserted house which Peter had often shuddered to look at in the daytime, the mice stopped.