The three friends laughed aloud. Dinny proved as good at predicting as Gonff. Midday found the travelers at the edge of a large pond. Bulrushes and reeds surrounded the margin, small water lilies budded on the surface. The glint of silver scales beneath the water promised good fishing. At first Martin was loath to stop but, realizing the valuable addition a fish would make to their supplies, he called a halt. While his 152.

friends went about fishing, the warrior posted himself on guard to watch for their pursuers.

Dinny sat on the edge of the bank, immersing his paws in the shallows with exclamations of delight.

"Oo arr, oo bliss V joys. Hurr, this be the loif, Gonffen!"

The mousethief had cast a line baited with a tiny red mud-worm. In seconds it was s.n.a.t.c.hed by a voracious stickleback. "Ha, look, matey," he called. "IVe got a bite! Come to Gonff, old greedyguts."

Martin crept up behind them. He placed a paw gently on each of his friends' shoulders as he whispered to them, "Ssshhh. Listen to me. We are in great danger. Don't make a sound, if you value our lives!"

153.

Skipper sat inside the curve of a big hollow log. He faced a slim gray otter, trying hard not to look where the strange creature's tail had once been.

"So then, Mask, how are you keeping, my brother?" he asked.

The Mask nibbled at some otter delicacies that his brother had thoughtfully brought along.

"Oh, I get by, Skip. Sometimes I'm a squirrel, sometimes a fox. Ha, I was even a half-grown badger for a while."

Skipper shook his head in amazement, gazing around the hollow log where the master of disguises lived alone. Many curious objects were carefully stowed there: make-believe tails, false ears, a selection of various whiskers.

The Mask watched Skipper with his odd pale eyes. Seizing a few things, he turned his back and made some swift secret adjustments. When he turned around, Skipper's mouth fell open in disbelief.

"Look, Skip. I'm a squirrel again!"

The otter chieftain marveled; this creature in front of him was surely an aged squirrel-thin, graying-but undeniably a squirrel, from its bushy tail and erect ears, right to the two large front upper teeth.

"Strike me tops'Is, Mask. How d'you do it?"

"Oh, it's no great thing," the Mask chuckled quietly. "Actually, I'd look more like a treeflyer if I took a little more 154.

J time and care with this disguise. This is only a quick change "; to amuse you."

; Skipper whacked his tail against the side of the log. "Well, ' you could fool me anytime, shipmate,"

Mask tossed aside the false tail and ears. Spitting out the two false front teeth, he readjusted his body. He was an otter again.

"Maybe I fooled you, maybe I didn't. But you're not fooling me, Skipper of Camp Willow. What do you want me to do?"

Skipper sat back, folding his paws across his chest. "I have a proposition to make to you, brother Mask. Sit still and hear me out."

Tsarmina glared through the cell aperture at Gingivere. The imprisoned wildcat sat in the darkest part of the cell. His fur was tousled, damp from the walls dewed his paws, his head dropped despairingly. Now and then his eyes would flicker rapidly. The wildcat Queen brought her face close to the bars. "If you know what's good for you, you'll tell me all about how those two hedgehogs made their escape. Speak up. You must have heard or seen something-they were in the cells either side of you."

Gingivere leaped up, his voice a cracked singsong shout. "Hahaha! You let them escape so you can have their bread > and water. I knew you wouldn't give me any. You're keeping it all for yourself. Oh, I saw you, sneaking along the pa.s.sage. You let them go so that you could have all that bread and water for yourself. Heeheehee."

.',- Tsarmina turned to Cludd. "Listen to that. He's completely crazy."

She swept off down the pa.s.sage. Cludd stayed a moment, looking through the bars. He had never seen a completely .crazy wildcat before, although he had seen his mistress dan- -?gerously close to that condition once or twice.

"No bread, no water, she's keeping it for herself." Gin- ^givere continued his insane lament.

j; Cludd banged the door with his spear. "Quiet in there!"

JV "Atishoo!"

3 The sneeze came as Cludd was turning away. He whirled ck. "Who did that?"

155.

Gingivere grabbed a pawful of straw and sneezed into it. "Atishoo, choo! Oh, I'm sick and dying, sir. The cold and damp down here. Please get me extra rations of bread and water or I'll die."

Cludd rapped the door with his spear again. "Enough of that! You get the rations Lady Tsarmina allows. So stop moaning, or I'll give you something to moan about."

As the weasel Captain lumbered off down the pa.s.sage, another sneeze rang out.

"Atishoo!"

On the wall above the cell door, two food haversacks hung from a spike driven into the rock. Ferdy and Coggs sat, one in each sack, their heads poking out like two fledgling house-martins in their respective nests.

Coggs reached across, trying to stifle Ferdy's snout with his paw, but another sneeze rang out.

"Atishoo!"

Ferdy blinked and rubbed his snout. "Sorry, sir. This bag has flour in it from the scones, and it's tickling my sn . . . sn . . . Ashoo!"

Reaching up, Gingivere lifted his little cellmates down from their hiding place. While there were no guards about, they could play and exercise.

Chibb flew to the window, dropping the latest supplies in. He caught the empty sacks that Gingivere tossed up to him. In the shaft of light the wildcat was looking strangely sane and healthy.

"What news, Chibb?"

"Ahemhem. The Corim have decided that you must soon be rescued, all three of you. How they propose to do it, I don't know yet."

Gingivere nodded. "I hope they realize that the longer they wait, the more dangerous it becomes for Ferdy and Coggs."

Chibb slung the empty sacks around his neck. "Ahem, I'm sure they do. At present the message is, keep on the alert and keep up your courage. You are not forgotten."

Chibb flew off swiftly. Gaining the woodlands, he paused to perch on a spruce branch as he adjusted the bags about his neck for easier flight. Argulor belched dozily and glanced at the robin perched 156.

j

' beside him. Chibb gave a jump of surprise, but did not forget I his manners.

*; "Ahem, beg pardon." The fat robin darted from the branch ":'. like a flame-tipped arrow.

Argulor shifted his claws. Wearily he dropped his eyelids back into the slumbering position.

Were the small birds getting faster, or was he getting slower? The eagle dismissed the problem, reasoning that there were still plenty of soldiers in Kotir who were a lot slower than a single robin redbreast. A lot tastier, too.

Dinny and Gonff sat quite still at the edge of the pond as Martin whispered to them, "Now, very slowly, look to your left. Do you see the female swan over there? She's sitting on her nest with her back to us. Right. Don't look, just take my word for it, in the open water to the other side there's a big male swan-it's her mate. He's not seen us yet, but he's headed this way and bound to sight us if we stop here, so let's move away as silently as possible."

With great care Gonff let the fish slip back into the water. He cut his fishing line. The three friends moved speedily, ducking behind the rushes with not a second to spare.

The huge white swan glided by them serenely. He was like a ship in full sail, an awesome spectacle, the snowy white body and half-folded wings complementing perfectly the muscular serpentine neck column surmounted by a solid orange bill and fierce black eyes.

Martin shuddered. He thought of how close they had been to death. The male swan was warlike and fearless, absolute monarch of his pond. Any creature who dared trespa.s.s upon these waters while his mate sat upon the three new-hatched cygnets in their nest was fated never to see the sunset. The white colossus swept by, continuing his patrol of the pond.

When he was past, the three friends slipped away. Gonff whispered a silent goodbye to the silver fish in the shallows. "We were both lucky that time, matey. Swim free."

A respectable distance from the water, Dinny untangled a streamer of duckweed from his paw.

, "Boi okey, this'n's owd granfer near losed a dear liddle /: 157 mole back thurr. Oi never see'd a skwon afore, gurt feathery burdbag they be, stan* on moi tunnel."

They lunched on apples and bread, supplemented with some cow parsley that Dinny had discovered.

Blacktooth and Splitnose sighted the pond. They had been running ahead of Scratch after a particularly nasty bout of name-calling. The stoat and ferret had called Scratch a frog-walloper; this seemed to touch some hidden nerve in the weasel, and he took strong objection to the insult. The pair ran off, cackling gleefully as the weasel threw pebbles and earth clods after them.

"Come back here and say that, you cowardly custards. I'll give you frog wallopers when I get you!"

Running wide, they approached the pond at a different angle from that of the travelers. Blacktooth and Splitnose whooped with delight.

"Look, a river, a river! Truce, Scratch!"

Scratch joined them, the quarrel temporarily forgotten at the sight of the watery expanse.

"That's not a river, it's a pond," he pointed out. "This is more like it, a good fresh drink, a nice bath for our paws. Look, a swan sitting on a nest. Swan eggs-what a tasty idea!"

Splitnose was not so sure. "Er, don't you think that bird looks a bit big, Scratch?"

"So what?" the weasel snorted. "There's three of us and we've got spears. I bet swan eggs are lovely."

"Have you ever eaten one?" Splitnose asked.

"No, I've never even seen one, but I bet they're very big and good to eat."

"Well, all right, we'll back you up. How do you get the eggs?"

"Easy, just stand in the shallows and chuck our spears at the swan until it's forced to fly away, then we rob the eggs."

Buoyed by Scratch's confidence, they waded into the shallows. The female swan watched them fearlessly. She issued a warning hiss.

The would-be plunderers were enjoying themselves immensely.

158.

"Ooh aahh. Hey, Blackie, doesn't this mud feel great when you squelch it with your paws?" Splitnose called.

"Aye, 'specially after all that running, mate. Just watch this." Blacktooth flung his spear. It fell far short of the tar- Splitnose laughed scornfully, then threw his. It went a little further, but still far short of the swan.

Scratch sneered contemptuously at their efforts. "Huh, you two couldn't throw a frozen worm and hit the earth. Go and get some stones to fling at her. I can probably wade out that fer and stab the bird."

The ferret and the stoat waded back to the bank, and ran off to search for missiles.

Scratch ventured recklessly on until the water was around . his middle. There was a crackle of parting rushes behind him. Scratch turned in the water. The giant male swan blotted out everything in his vision; he did not even get a chance to cry out or lift his spear.

Scratch was dead before he knew it!

Splitnose and Blacktooth returned to the water's edge, their paws full of rocks and earth clods.

"How'11 this little lot do, Scratch?"

"Scratch, where are you?"

"Scratchy-watchy, you old frogwalloper, come out. We know you're hiding, we can see the rushes moving."

The male swan came thundering out of the rushes in half-flight, churning up a bow wave as it hissed like a nest of serpents.

' * Yooooaaaaggggghhhh!''

Only the speed of raw terror and the fact that they were .racing away from the pond and its nest saved the lives of the panic-stricken pair.

"Owoowoowoo helpelpelp!"

The male swan webbed its way up onto the bank, beating its wings wide to the blue sky, hissing out its victory cry-a savage challenge to the distant runners.

The female settled securely on her babes in the nest. She j-preened her neck feathers, smiling with just a touch of smug-Bess. Swans never laugh aloud.

K * * *

159.

Though they were a fair distance from the pond, Martin and his friends heard the anguished shouts on the breeze.

"Sounds like our followers from Kotir have ruffled someone's feathers, eh, Din," Martin remarked. The mole looked grave. "Skwons etted 'em, oi uxpect." Gonff placed a paw on his heart and sang slowly, A weasel, ferret and a stoat, Found a pond but had no boat. Now they can't see the waters from The inside of a swan.

Tsarmina stood at her high window, watching the squirrels. They had descended from the trees at the woodland edge. With them were two small hedgehogs clad in cooking-pot helmets and blanket cloaks.

Fortunata rapped lightly at the chamber door and entered.

"Milady, oh, you've already seen them."

Tsarmina did not even turn to look at Fortunata. She continued peering intently at the two little figures in the middle of the squirrel group.

"Are they taunting us, do you think?" she asked.

Fortunata joined her at the window. "No, woodlanders don't go in for that sort of display, Milady."

To her surprise, Fortunata found Tsarmina patting her approvingly. "Good thinking, fox. Shall I send out a party to try and capture them?"