The Snail crawled out of the water and shook himself, stretched his eyes and paused for breath.
“Run away, Nikko,” he said. “I should like to carry you, but my pace is too slow. You had better trust to your feet. Hurry, hurry and flee from the land of China, or the Emperor’s soldiers will catch you!”
“But I won’t leave you,” protested Nikko.
“Yes, you must leave me. I will follow by and by and meet you in the big world beyond China, for no one will think about me or try to catch me. Take the Spider with you. Buddha preserve you!”
So Nikko and the Spider kissed him goodbye and ran away together, over muddy fields of rice and big dry fields of black poppies, past temples and villages till they came to the furthest end of the country. It was lucky they had not waited for the Snail, for no sooner were they out of sight of the palace than they heard the Emperor’s soldiers coming after them. Somebody really had seen them in the moat; it was the Dragon, who had drunk so much tea the day before that he could not sleep that night and was prowling through the yard looking for the Snail. He wanted to have another argument to pass the time. But when he discovered the Snail in the moat, carrying Nikko away from the tower, he did not stop to argue—he ran straight to the Emperor’s room, and told him what he had seen.
Nikko ran as fast as she could, ducking under the tea-plants whenever she had to stop and rest. She lost one shoe in the deep mud, so she took off the other one too and carried it in her hand, glad to be barefoot again. The tea-plants tore her gown, but every time there was a fresh rent the Spider promptly mended it.
Thus they came to the great Wall of China, and there they had to stop. The gates were locked and the wall was much, much too high to climb over.
“Ha, we have you now!” shouted the soldiers, catching up and swinging their swords most grandly.
