Cheri himself, though not quite so frightened as Jeanne, was not much pleased with the result of his summons to the raven.

“It does look like a shabby trick,” he said; “but still I do not think the creatures mean to do us any harm.  And I don’t feel myself being turned into a frog yet; do you, Jeanne?”

“I don’t know,” said Jeanne, a very little comforted; “I don’t know what it would feel like to be turned into a frog; I’ve always been a little girl, and so I can’t tell.  I feel rather creepy and chilly, but perhaps it’s only with seeing the frogs.  What funny red eyes they’ve got.  What can they be going to do?”

She forgot her fears in the interest of watching them; Hugh, too, stared with all his eyes at the frogs, who, arranged in regular lines round the edge of the boat, began working away industriously at something which, for a minute or two, the children could not make out.  At last Jeanne called out eagerly,

“They are throwing over little lines, Cheri—­lots and lots of little lines.  There must be frogs down below waiting to catch them.”

So it was; each frog threw over several threads which he seemed to unwind from his body; these threads were caught by something invisible down below, and twisted round and round several times, till at last they became as firm and strong as a fine twine.  And when, apparently, the frogs considered that they had made cables enough, they settled themselves down, each firmly on his two hind legs, still holding by the rope with their front ones, and then—­in another moment—­to the children’s great delight, they felt the boat beginning to move.  It moved on smoothly—­almost as smoothly as when on the water—­there were no jogs or tugs, as might have been the case if it had been pulled by two or three coarse, strong ropes, for all the hundreds of tiny cables pulling together made one even force.

“Why, how clever they are!” cried Jeanne.  “We go as smoothly as if we were on wheels.  Nice little frogs.  I am sure we are very much obliged to them—­aren’t we, Cheri?”

“And to Dudu,” observed Hugh.

Jeanne shrugged her shoulders.  She was not over and above sure of Dudu even now.

The boat moved along for some time; the pass between the hills was dark and gloomy, and though the water got wider, as Jeanne had seen, it would not for some distance have been possible for the children to row.  After a time it suddenly grew much lighter; they came out from the narrow pass and found themselves but a few yards from a sheet of still water with trees all round it—­a sort of mountain lake it seemed, silent and solitary, and reflecting back from its calm bosom the soft, silvery, even radiance which since they came out from the door on the hillside had been the children’s only light.

And in the middle of this lake lay a little island—­a perfect nest of trees, whose long drooping branches hung down into the water.