While the Wigs were in the kitchen, and Smaly and Redy were seated in the doorway sharing Papylick's provisions, distant cries rose upon the air. Smaly and Redy turned to gaze out at the public square, which was hot and empty; but in a moment several Wigs arrived at the far end, running hard with their little short legs, and crying out:

"The prison has turned round, it's coming in this direction."

The Chief Contractor, who was eating in the kitchen in company with the Despoiler, the Confectioner, the Crow, Mistigris, the Stork, and various other people, precipitated himself towards the door, followed by the rest. Listening to their scraps of conversation Smaly gathered that the Wigs held some stranger captive, and that this prisoner lived in a perambulating prison which travelled about the country. This astonished Smaly very much, as, indeed, it would have astonished you had you been in his place. Even I, who have seen many strange things, was very astonished when I first heard about it.

The shouting grew nearer, and there appeared at the far end of the square a forest of sugar-canes moving steadily onwards. The canes reared up into the air like rockets which never rose any higher, or like a field of gigantic corn, and they formed a solid wall which came ever nearer and nearer.

The wall came onward and hit against a house which stood in its way, and mowed it down. The sugar-canes were far more powerful than the pastry of which the house was composed.

The sugar-cane forest came closer, so close that Smaly and Redy perceived how amongst the base of the canes there was a multitude of Water-Rats who were busy watering the roots.

These Rats were all provided with large mackintoshes, which, however, they took off for greater freedom of movement while they were watering. They wore boots like those you see upon the men who clean out drains, and each Rat had upon its head a fireman's helmet similar to that worn by the Stork.

Some watered with a watering-can, some with firemen's hose, connected with reservoirs shaped like enormous bottles of champagne, and mounted upon wheels.

One of the Rats, who wore a long red feather trailing from its helmet, was mounted upon a Hare whose pads were wrapped in linen. The Rat galloped backwards and forwards upon the Hare from the forest to a big windmill marked "Soy," where the reservoirs were.

Still the forest kept on advancing until the quiet square was transformed into a den of noise and activity. The sugar-canes grew higher and more numerous every moment under the influence of the water of Soy, which was as productive as the Soy powder.

The kitchen was by now emptied of everything movable; the Wigs ran hither and thither carrying away every object that they could lift, as people move furniture when a neighbouring house is burning; only Smaly and Redy remained, stupefied before this moving forest which marched down upon them.

When it was almost on them they ran to one side, and there, where the sugar-canes were less thick, they could see into the heart of the forest, and they saw crouching within it a strange-looking man dressed in rags. Little of his face showed between his long hair and his tangled beard. He wore no shoes; but carried at the end of a string several boxes of matches. Perpetually he made the same rhythmic gesture with his arms, and with every gesture the sugar-canes around him broke as if they were made of brittle glass. His eyes stared straight in front of him, and he seemed to be laughing to himself.

"He is a madman," said Redy.

"They have driven him mad," replied Smaly in a low voice.

Smaly and Redy joined hands. "We ought to save him," they said together.

The Prisoner never ceased to break the sugar-canes, and fresh canes sprang up around him also without a pause.

Fish that had wings and paws flew above the forest, brushing the heads of the canes with their ringed noses. Whenever they did this the sugar-canes seemed to shrivel up and vanish.

And thus the forest advanced, new canes springing up ahead, and the old canes withering behind; but always surrounding the Prisoner, no matter how he shattered them.

Now these rings which the Flying-Fish wore in their noses had been fixed there by the Despoiler, and the rings worn by all the Wigs came from the same source and served the same purpose, that of stopping all growth. This was how the Despoiler came by his name, for mere creature of insensate pasteboard as he was, he had the power from his magic ring to arrest all life—a blade of grass in the ground, or the passage of a bird in the air.

Suddenly the Prisoner paused in his frantic toil and fell asleep like a child. The rats also left off their work and wrapped themselves in their mackintoshes.

Smaly and Redy wished to attract the attention of the Prisoner; but the strange man slept on, and they did not dare speak to him too loudly, for they were afraid that he might be quite mad, and also they did not know how the Wigs would take interference with their prisoner. Indeed, Papylick and the Young Stork had already noticed what they were trying to do, and since the kitchen had been destroyed by the passing of the forest they now drew Smaly and Redy gently but firmly into one of the houses in the square.

"This is the house of the Historian," said Papylick, "and here you must stay until the setting of the sun."