“Perhaps,” said Hugh.  “We may try.”  So out the children got—­Jeanne pulled in front, Hugh pushed behind.  It was so very light that there was no difficulty as to its weight; only the gorge was so narrow that at last the boat stuck fast.

“We’d better leave it and clamber through ourselves,” said Hugh.

“But, O Cheri, we can’t!” cried Jeanne.  “From where I am I can see that the water gets wider again a little farther on.  And the rocks come quite sharp down to the side.  There is nowhere we could clamber on to, and I dare say the water is very deep.  There are lots of little streams trickling into it from the rocks, and the boat could go quite well if we could but get it a little farther.”

“But we can’t,” said Hugh; “it just won’t go.”

“Oh dear,” said Jeanne, “we’ll have to go back.  But how should we find the door in the hillside to go up the stair; or if we did get up, how should we push away the stone?  And even then, there would be the forest to go through, and perhaps we couldn’t find our way among the trees as Houpet did.  O Cheri, what shall we do?”

Hugh stood still and considered.

“I think,” he said at last, “I think the time’s come for whistling.”

And before Jeanne could ask him what he meant, he gave three clear, short whistles, and then waited to see the effect.

It was a most unexpected one.  Hugh had anticipated nothing else than the sudden appearance, somehow and somewhere, of Monsieur Dudu himself, as large as life—­possibly, in this queer country of surprises, where they found themselves, a little larger!  When and how he would appear Hugh was perfectly at a loss to imagine—­he might fly down from the sky; he might spring up from the water; he might just suddenly stand before them without their having any idea how he had come.  Hugh laughed to himself at the thought of Jeanne’s astonishment, and after all it was Jeanne who first drew his attention to what was really happening.

“Hark, Cheri, hark!” she cried, “what a queer noise!  What can it be?”

Hugh’s attention had been so taken up in staring about in every direction for the raven that he had not noticed the sound which Jeanne had heard, and which now increased every moment.

It was a soft, swishy sound—­as if innumerable little boats were making their way through water, or as if innumerable little fairies were bathing themselves, only every instant it came nearer and nearer, till at last, on every side of the boat in which the children were still standing, came creeping up from below lots and lots and lots of small, bright green frogs, who clambered over the sides and arranged themselves in lines along the edges in the most methodical and orderly manner.  Jeanne gave a scream of horror, and darted across the boat to where Hugh was standing.

“O Cheri,” she cried, “why did you whistle?  It’s all that naughty Dudu.  He’s going to turn us into frogs too, I do believe, because he thinks I laughed at him.  Oh dear, oh dear, what shall we do?”