"No, no, no!" she screamed; "too late! Hide me! O good people, hide me!" But it was indeed too late. The parrots had been wheeling in the air, hundreds and hundreds of them, high above her head; and as she ceased speaking, she fell shuddering on the ground, drew her cloak over her face, and down they came, swooping in one immense flock, and settled so thickly all over her that she was completely covered; from her shoes to her head not an atom of her was to be seen. All the people stood gravely looking on. So did Jack, but he could not see much for the fluttering of the parrots, nor hear anything for their screaming voices; but at last he made one of the cross people hear when he shouted to her, "What are they going to do to the poor gypsy?" "Make her take her other form," she replied; "and then she cannot hurt us while she stays in our country. She is a fairy, as we have just found out, and all fairies have two forms." "Oh!" said Jack; but he had no time for more questions. The screaming and fighting, and tossing about of little bits of cloth and cotton, ceased; a black lump heaved itself up from the ground among the parrots; and as they flew aside, an ugly great condor, with a bare neck, spread out its wings, and, skimming the ground, sailed slowly away. "They have pecked her so that she can hardly rise," exclaimed the parrot fairy. "Set me on your shoulder, Jack, and let me see the end of it." Jack set him there; and his little wife, who had recovered herself, sprang from her friend the brown woman, and sat on the other shoulder. He then ran on,--the tribe of brown people and mushroom people, and the feather-coated folks running too,--after the great black bird, who skimmed slowly on before them till she got to the gypsy carts, when out rushed the gypsies, armed with poles, milking-stools, spades, and everything they could get hold of to beat back the people and the parrots from hunting their relation, who had folded her tired wings, and was skulking under a cart, with ruffled feathers and a scowling eye. Jack was so frightened at the violent way in which the gypsies and the other tribes were knocking each other about, that he ran off, thinking he had seen enough of such a dangerous country. As he passed the place where that evil-minded gypsy had been changed, he found the ground strewed with little bits of her clothes. Many parrots were picking them up, and poking them into the cage where the handkerchief was; and presently another parrot came with a lighted brand, which she had pulled from one of the gypsies' fires. "That's right," said the fairy on Jack's shoulder, when he saw his friend push the brand between the wires of what had been his cage, and set the gypsy's handkerchief on fire, and all the bits of her clothes with it. "She won't find much of herself here," he observed, as Jack went on. "It will not be very easy to put herself together again."