Fifty crows surrounded him, with bills pointed toward him to guard him.  “Now perhaps I may hear, crows, what your purpose is in carrying me off”, said he.  But he was hardly permitted to finish the sentence before a big crow hissed at him:  “Keep still! or I’ll bore your eyes out.”

It was evident that the crow meant what she said; and there was nothing for the boy to do but obey.  So he sat there and stared at the crows, and the crows stared at him.

The longer he looked at them, the less he liked them.  It was dreadful how dusty and unkempt their feather dresses were—­as though they knew neither baths nor oiling.  Their toes and claws were grimy with dried-in mud, and the corners of their mouths were covered with food drippings.  These were very different birds from the wild geese—­that he observed.  He thought they had a cruel, sneaky, watchful and bold appearance, just like cut-throats and vagabonds.

“It is certainly a real robber-band that I’ve fallen in with,” thought he.

Just then he heard the wild geese’s call above him.  “Where are you?  Here am I. Where are you?  Here am I.”

He understood that Akka and the others had gone out to search for him; but before he could answer them the big crow who appeared to be the leader of the band hissed in his ear:  “Think of your eyes!” And there was nothing else for him to do but to keep still.

The wild geese may not have known that he was so near them, but had just happened, incidentally, to travel over this forest.  He heard their call a couple of times more, then it died away.  “Well, now you’ll have to get along by yourself, Nils Holgersson,” he said to himself.  “Now you must prove whether you have learned anything during these weeks in the open.”

A moment later the crows gave the signal to break up; and since it was still their intention, apparently, to carry him along in such a way that one held on to his shirt-band, and one to a stocking, the boy said:  “Is there not one among you so strong that he can carry me on his back?  You have already travelled so badly with me that I feel as if I were in pieces.  Only let me ride!  I’ll not jump from the crow’s back, that I promise you.”

“Oh! you needn’t think that we care how you have it,” said the leader.  But now the largest of the crows—­a dishevelled and uncouth one, who had a white feather in his wing—­came forward and said:  “It would certainly be best for all of us, Wind-Rush, if Thumbietot got there whole, rather than half, and therefore, I shall carry him on my back.”  “If you can do it, Fumle-Drumle, I have no objection,” said Wind-Rush.  “But don’t lose him!”

With this, much was already gained, and the boy actually felt pleased again.  “There is nothing to be gained by losing my grit because I have been kidnapped by the crows,” thought he.  “I’ll surely be able to manage those poor little things.”