d not noticed the sound which Jeanne
had heard, and which now increased every moment.

It was a soft, swishy sound--as if innumerable little boats were making
their way through water, or as if innumerable little fairies were
bathing themselves, only every instant it came nearer and nearer, till
at last, on every side of the boat in which the children were still
standing, came creeping up from below lots and lots and _lots_ of small,
bright green frogs, who clambered over the sides and arranged themselves
in lines along the edges in the most methodical and orderly manner.
Jeanne gave a scream of horror, and darted across the boat to where Hugh
was standing.

"O Cheri," she cried, "why did you whistle? It's all that naughty Dudu.
He's going to turn us into frogs too, I do believe, because he thinks I
laughed at him. Oh dear, oh dear, what shall we do?"

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 beginni