“Of course I am! Right, hup, two, three! There, that does it. What’s the matter now? You’ve got a face on you like a squashed pie.”

“Hmm mm, got something sticking in my leg.”

“Let me see. Oh, ’tis only a splinter. Come in the gatehouse and I’ll get it out. Stop hoppin’ about like a one-legged duck!”

“Hmm. Only a splinter, he says. Feels more like a log to me!”

The trespassers waited until the gatehouse door closed before making their way across the silent lawns toward the Abbey.

*

Cregga was not too familiar with the outside path, and allowed Skipper to guide her toward the southwest corner where the rendezvous was to take place. “Are they there as they said they’d be, Skip?”

Rusvul’s voice murmured low to one side of Cregga. “I see the scum. They’re lyin’ in the ditch, speartops pokin’ up.”

Janglur’s eyes shifted under their heavy lids. “Right, mate, I sees them meself now. There’s that Marlfox climbin’ out, two rats be’ind him. They’re carryin’ somethin’, looks like the mousebabe done up in a sack.”

The Redwallers halted at the southwest corner. As Mokkan walked forward, the other three Marlfoxes led the water rats out of the ditch in a pincer movement to form a semicircle in front of the Redwallers, standing with their backs to the wall. Janglur nodded curtly to Mokkan. “Well, fox, got a liddle ’un with yer?”

At a signal from Mokkan two rats dumped the sack containing Dwopple in front of the Marlfox. He placed a footpaw on it. “He’s right here. Brought the valuables with you?”

Janglur indicated the Redwallers bearing the curtain bags. “We’ve brought ’em, but y’don’t get to see one trinket until you show us the mousebabe unharmed.”

Mokkan smiled thinly and bowed slightly to his adversary. “My compliments, you show good sense. Show them the mousebabe.”

One of the water rats sprang forward and slit the sack expertly with a small thin dagger. Baby Dwopple rolled out, curled in a ball and snoring uproariously. Mokkan pointed at the curtain bags. “Now let’s see the ransom!”

Janglur winked at Rusvul. “Open ’er up, mate!”

Between them the two squirrel warriors ripped aside the ties on the bag of trinkets they were carrying, smashing it in the faces of Mokkan and his companions with a mighty roar.

“Redwaaaaaaallll!”

Then the action began at an alarming rate.