It’s settled then, it’s done.

And if food goes missing I’ll say,

‘Blame me, sir, I’m the one.’”

“Don’t worry, I will, old chap,” Basil muttered under his breath.

Orlando reared up, shading his eyes with a big paw.

“I see a black shadow. Maybe that is the black line on the map. We should make it sometime about sunset.”

Matthias pulled the map out. “Hmm yes, a sort of broad black band. I wonder what it is.”

Basil was still muttering to himself, “Huh, soon find out, I s’pose. If it’s anythin’ to eat, I’ll bet that owl gets there first. Hmph, poetry indeed!”

*   *   *

Orlando’s estimate was correct. It was just as the sun began dipping beyond the western horizon that they stood on the edge of the great gorge. They gazed awestruck at the massive fissure splitting the land asunder. Orlando and Matthias peered over the edge.

“By the fur and claw! Look at that!”

“How are we going to cross a gap that wide?”

Sir Harry sat back on his tail feathers.

“Tho’ I’m the most poetic of birds,

Right now I’m lost for words!”

Log-a-Log whirled his sling and shot a stone down into the abyss. There was neither sound nor echo came back.

Orlando quoted the lines of the poem from memory:

“Shrink not from the barren land

Look below from where you stand,

This is where a stone may fall and make no sound at all.”

Jabez shook his head in wonderment.

“So this is what a broad black band on a map looks like.”

37

Half-eaten fruit, some of it rotten, lay scattered between the upturned beds, torn sheets and stained walls of the once neat dormitory, and a window had been broken so that the magpies and rooks could fly in and out at will. The fighters of General Ironbeak had smashed the small wooden lockers and tables. They lay about in the wreckage, some sleeping, others eating. Ironbeak had taken the infirmary and sickbay as his headquarters. Mangiz explored the cupboards, poking his beak into Sister May’s collection of herbal remedies.

“Yagga! Why do these stupid earthcrawlers keep dead leaves and grasses? They are not good to eat, so what use are they?”

Ironbeak perched on Sister May’s wooden stool. “Who knows, Mangiz. That is nothing to do with our problem. I am certain that the earthcrawlers have plenty to eat and drink down in that place called Cavern Hole. The time is coming when we will have to think about an attack. We will go in there and drag them out.”

Mangiz stood on the medicine cupboard, shaking his head. “That would be like using a boulder to crush an ant, my General. I am sure there must be a better answer to your problem.”

“Then tell me, Mangiz. You are my seer. Are the pictures becoming clear in your mind again?”