Then, to the melancholy accompaniment of Mary's wailing—and she gave an awful yell whenever they pushed her on to her nose—surrounded by a glowering throng of wolves and hyænas and hippopotamuses, they were hustled upwards in the deepening dusk by steep ravines and precipice paths, until, through a narrow pass, they entered a wide grassy plain, walled on three sides by encircling spurs, and on the fourth by the steep snow-slope of the mountain summit itself.
From the snow-slope a stream sprang, and twisted through the plain until it slid, deep, transparent, ice-green, down beside the entrance path.
After the prisoners poured the whole of the Black Mountain Army, who, having set a guard at the entrance, all lay down to sleep, covering the plain closely with their dark forms.
Baby Jane was usually a hungry child, and liked sometimes to fall asleep thinking of breakfast, but now she did not like the idea at all. It was horrid to think that she was now, as it were, a little sausage waiting on the pantry shelf; indeed, the idea was so uncomfortable that she could not sleep, but nestled close to the Bear and watched the stars come out from behind the faintly glowing snow peak.
But what had happened to the Rabbit? If only he could come and take a message to her army! He would not leave her of his own accord, but would wait about near her.
At that moment she felt a curious heaving of the ground beneath her back; it was like a tiny earthquake. What could it be? She moved away from that spot, and with her hand felt the earth rise in a little mound higher and higher. Then the mound divided, there was a sound of a sneeze, and the Rabbit's head emerged. He brushed the earth off his ears and whiskers, and then remarked, complacently:
'If you know a rabbit who thinks he can burrow, fetch him along, and I'll teach him what proper burrowing's like. Down I went just outside the entrance, and up I come here!'
Baby Jane was so overcome with delight that she hugged the Rabbit's head in her arms and nearly smothered him with kisses. Then she quietly wakened the Bear and Mary, and the whole party held a whispered council of war.
After sitting with a puckered forehead for some minutes, Mary sagely suggested:
'Of course, all we've got to do is to burrow back after the Rabbit.'