The floor gave way beneath them and dropped them straight down into darkness. They landed on bare earth, shaken but unhurt.
“Where are we?” shouted Captain Lark.
“In the dungeon,” hissed the Governor. Teeth bared, he peered down at them. Before any one of them could speak, he slammed the trap door shut and left them there. By the light of a tiny window high in the earthen wall, they looked at each other. Below the window, set with bars of polished bones, was the faint outline of a door that had neither latch nor lock, and a tangle of roots sealed it shut.
“Is this the end of everything?” asked Susannah. “This dark little room?”
“Stone walls do not a prison make,” sang Captain Lark, but his good cheer sounded forced. “Climb on my shoulders, Anatole, and let’s rattle the bars.”
Anatole climbed up, but the window stayed out of reach, and Captain Lark refused to let Susannah climb on Anatole’s shoulders for fear she would fall and break.
“Then it is the end,” wailed Susannah.
“This may be the end or it may not be,” said Captain Lark. “When the swing throws us up into the sky, we may simply find ourselves somewhere else. Then you can ask the first person we meet to point out the way to Mother Weather-sky’s garden. If you need someone to protect you, I offer my services.”
“Thank you,” said Susannah.
“We would be very pleased to have you join us, Captain,” said Anatole.
“What time do you think the dogs will come for us?” asked Susannah.
“Sunrise,” the rabbit answered. “It was always sunrise when we sent our prisoners to walk the plank.”
“To walk the plank?” repeated Susannah.
“To die,” said Anatole.
“Oh, Captain Lark, how dreadful!”
“I’m very sorry, my lady,” murmured the rabbit. “I won’t speak of it again.”
Suddenly a muffled voice rasped, “Move the stone and let me in!”
Quicksilver scooted away in terror. The stone on which he had been sitting shifted ever so little, and when Anatole lifted it up, a large rat put its head through the hole and blinked at them.
“Don’t be afraid,” whispered the rat. “Your friend the cat sent me to show you a way out of the dungeon. Follow me down the tunnel.”
And the rat slipped out of sight. Quicksilver followed it, and Susannah, after peering carefully into the hole, climbed after Quicksilver.
“Come on, Captain Lark,” called Anatole, easing himself in after Susannah.
From the mouth of the tunnel he heard Captain Lark’s voice, trembling with disappointment.
“The door is too small for me. You go forward. I’ll dig it wider and meet you later.”
“You can’t dig alone,” said Anatole. He shouted for the others to help, and they all crawled back into the dungeon. The earth around the tunnel was soft. They dug fast and soon enlarged the entrance.
“This time let Captain Lark go first,” said Anatole.
The rabbit lowered himself carefully into the tunnel until only his ears showed, their golden rings twinkling. Then he stopped.
“Keep going,” urged Anatole. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m stuck,” grunted the rabbit. “The tunnel gets narrower here.”
“Can’t you back out the way you came?” asked Susannah. “We’ll dig it wider.”
“I can’t go backward or forward,” groaned Captain Lark.
They all began shouting at once, till a rap on the door under the window silenced them. Captain Lark, pushing and struggling, pulled himself back into the dungeon just as the roots that bound the door snapped apart and the loose earth trickled down the wall like tears.
The door broke open, and the Great Dane bounded into the room.
“Halt, or be torn to bits!” he barked.
He threw a circle of rope around them and pulled it tight, gathering them together like sheaves.
“Surely, you aren’t going to execute us now,” said Captain Lark. “Sunrise is the usual hour, I believe.”
“For us there is no usual hour.” The Great Dane smiled. “During the day you’d give our citizens a little amusement, but the Governor is eager to be rid of you. A noisier bunch he’s never heard. And when he discovers this”—he pointed to the hole in the floor—“he’ll thank his stars he didn’t wait.”
Anatole just had time to grab Quicksilver before the Great Dane herded them into the corridor. No lights glowed at the far end, and Anatole supposed that they had a long walk ahead of them, but soon the air grew cooler, and he glanced up and saw overhead the whole shimmering fabric of the stars.
“What beautiful lights live in the sky,” said Susannah. They stepped outside. A spicy fragrance nearly took Anatole’s breath away. Captain Lark wiggled his nose.
“It is the night-blooming cereus,” he observed. “A great bush of it grew by the house in which I was born.”
He spoke so calmly that Anatole asked, “Aren’t you afraid?”
“Of high places, yes. When we ride up in the swing, please hold my paw.”
A dead sycamore, bone white in the moonlight, rose over the crest of the hill to meet them. Anatole gave a gasp of relief. Instead of a place of execution, he saw a deserted playground. The swing was like the one in his backyard, though its ropes were longer and would travel farther.
“Lovely view,” remarked the Great Dane. He untied the rope that bound them together. “We always give our prisoners time to admire the view.”
Below them, in the valley of the dogs, moonlight touched every hummock of grass. A bird cried out in its sleep from a distant forest. Captain Lark drew a deep breath and said very quietly:
“The earth is all before me: with a heart
Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty,
I look about, and should the guide I choose
Be nothing better than a wandering cloud,
I cannot miss my way.”
“Are you a poet, sir?” asked the Great Dane.
“No, no. Once the tide brought me a book—”
“Time’s up,” snapped the Great Dane. “Into the swing.”
“I have to face front or I shall be sick,” said Captain Lark. He jumped up on the seat, grasped the ropes, and stood facing the place where, in a few hours, the sun would rise, though they would not be here to watch it. Nevertheless, he took care to keep a cheerful face, just as if he were starting out on a vacation.
“Susannah, you get in next, and then you, Anatole.”
“Let’s be a sandwich,” said Anatole, “and Susannah can be the filling.”
“I will hold Quicksilver,” said Susannah.
They took their positions on the swing. Suddenly something sprang out of the darkness and landed on Anatole’s shoulder. It was Plumpet.
“Don’t say a word,” she purred in his ear. “Didn’t I promise to take care of you?”
The Great Dane, who did not notice Plumpet, sprang forward barking, and began to push the swing in long loping strokes, to and fro, to and fro. Now it was rising so swiftly that the dog could run under it. The air felt chillier. The swing was flying away from the earth. How faint his barking sounded! Glancing down, Anatole was astonished to find that the dog had shrunk to the size of a toadstool. On all sides, the stars drew near, like friendly lamps hanging from dark chains. They gave off a pleasant smell of hot wax.
“Hold my paw, please!”
“THEN THE SWING GAVE A TREMENDOUS JERK, FLIPPED OVER, AND THREW ITS PASSENGERS INTO THE SKY.”
Anatole worked his hand up the ropes till he found the rabbit’s paw. The rabbit’s eyes were closed and his mouth was moving. Over the whistle of the wind, Anatole heard him shouting,
“Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!”
The ropes were lengthening like shadows at dusk, unleashed from an endlessly turning spool.
Anatole was filled with a terror so total that he nearly let go the ropes. Then the swing gave a tremendous jerk, flipped over, and threw its passengers into the sky.