But after a minute or two when, not quite asleep, he lay listening to the soft breathing of the little girl, it seemed to him he heard still the gentle dip of the oars.  The more he listened, the more sure he became that it was so, and at last his curiosity grew so great that it half overcame his drowsiness.  He opened his eyes just enough to look up.  Yes, he was right, the boat was gliding steadily along, the oars were doing their work, and who do you think were the rowers?  Dudu on one side, Houpet on the other, rowing away as cleverly as if they had never done anything else in their lives, steadying themselves on one claw, rowing with the other.  Hugh did not feel the least surprised; he smiled sleepily, and turned over quite satisfied.

“They’ll take us safe back,” he said to himself:  and that was all he thought about it.

“Good-night, Cheri, good-night,” was the next thing he heard, or remembered hearing.

Hugh half sat up and rubbed his eyes.

Where was he?

Not in the boat, there was no sound of oars, the light that met his gaze was not that of the strange country where Jeanne and he had had all these adventures, it was just clear ordinary moonlight; and as for where he was, he was lying on the floor of the tapestry room close to the part of the wall where stood, or hung, the castle with the long flight of steps, which Jeanne and he had so wished to enter.  And from the other side of the tapestry—­from inside the castle, one might almost say—­came the voice he had heard in his sleep, the voice which seemed to have awakened him.

“Good-night, Cheri,” it said, “good-night.  I have gone home the other way.”

“Jeanne, Jeanne, where are you?  Wait!” cried Hugh, starting to his feet.  But there was no reply.

Hugh looked all round.  The room seemed just the same as usual, and if he had looked out of the window, though this he did not know, he would have seen the old raven on the terrace marching about, and, in his usual philosophical way, failing the sunshine, enjoying the moonlight; while down in the chickens’ house, in the corner of the yard, Houpet and his friends were calmly roosting; fat little Nibble soundly sleeping in his cage, cuddled up in the hay; poor, placid Grignan reposing in his usual corner under the laurel bush.  All these things Hugh would have seen, and would no doubt have wondered much at them.  But though neither tired nor cold, he was still sleepy, very sleepy, so, after another stare all round, he decided that he would defer further inquiry till the morning, and in the meantime follow the advice of Jeanne’s farewell “good-night.”

And “after all,” he said to himself, as he climbed up into his comfortable bed, “after all, bed is very nice, even though that little carriage was awfully jolly, and the boat almost better.  What fun it will be to talk about it all to-morrow morning with Jeanne.”