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. [Illustration: CARRYING AWAY EVERY OBJECT THAT THEY COULD LIFT] 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. [Illustration: THE PRISONER] 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. [Illustration: THE PRISONER NEVER CEASED TO BREAK THE SUGAR-CANES]