"Yes, but is there anything to eat?" asked the Goat Girl in a hollow voice. "If those rude little Topsies had just given us some breakfast."
"I expect all they eat is spinach or turnips," sniffed Nox, "and you would not have cared for either. Well, at any rate we're even. You certainly turned the tide on them, m'lass." Nox, who was beginning to feel more cheerful, began to shake all over. "I'll wager my tail they'll be more polite to travellers in the future."
"Well, as it all turned out so well, let's make another wish," proposed Handy Mandy practically. "Let's wish ourselves out of here. No use scrambling over all these rocks, when all we have to do is to wish ourselves to the spot where your little King happens to be."
"M-m-mm, M-m-m!" mused Nox, half closing his eyes. "Nothing is as easy as that, and I cannot help feeling—"
"Neither can I," said Handy, and stepping briskly up to the royal Ox, she gave his right horn a determined twist, at the same time saying softly: "I wish myself and Nox with Kerry, the rightful ruler of Keretaria." Nox twitched his ears nervously as his horn came off in the Goat Girl's best white hand and Handy herself, with all her arms outspread as if she were a bird about to take flight, waited in rapturous expectation for her wish to take effect. But this time nothing at all happened. Neither she nor the Ox moved an inch.
"There you are, I told you it wouldn't work," grumbled Nox, looking at her crossly. "It's probably not magic at all."
"Oh yes it is," insisted Handy, screwing up her eye and peering down into the hollow interior. "It gave us a river when we asked for it and you can't get away from that."
"We certainly had a hard enough time getting away from it," agreed her companion. "Come now, be a good girl, screw back that horn and let's be starting on."