Then the last of the water gurgled down, and the moat was bare and muddy. Sure enough, in the Castle walls there could be seen numerous drains like the one by which the children had entered the Castle before. At the mouth of two of these hung red flags. This was the moment that Commander-in-Chief Ethelred had been waiting for. He led his fifty eager and indignant Toads and his bloodthirsty Weasels out of the wood and down to the moat. They were all armed with fireproof shields and lavender water pistols. Penelope, looking very smart in her red uniform and feathered hat, ran beside him.
“Please, miss,” panted Ethelred as they scrambled down into the muddy moat and started to squelch their way across. “Please, miss, stay close to me and don’t do nuffink dangerous.”
“All right, I promise,” said Penelope, her face flushed with excitement. “Isn’t this thrilling?"
“Cor blimey, no it isn’t,” said Ethelred, as a cannonball splashed into the mud beside them. “It’s too dangerous to be thrilling.”
They reached the marked tunnels, and here Ethelred divided his forces into two. Urging upon them the need for absolute silence, so that they could take the sentries by surprise, he sent the Weasels up one drain while he and Penelope led Penelope’s Terrifying Toads up the other. To Penelope, scrambling along in the gloom behind Ethelred, it seemed the drain would never end. Then, suddenly, in front of them was an iron grill and beyond it the corridor which led to the dungeons where the Great Books were hidden. Carefully, they removed the grill and the Toads crept through into the corridor. A little farther up the corridor another grill had been removed and the Weasels were pouring through that. They joined forces with the Toads, and led by Ethelred and Penelope they made their way silently up the corridor.
Peering round the corner, Penelope and Ethelred could see a group of about ten Cockatrices who had obviously been left to guard the Books. They were grouped at the bottom of the stairs, arguing. It was plain that they did not think they could be attacked from the rear, for they were arguing as to whether or not they ought to go up and join the fight in the great courtyard. Eventually, their leader decided that one of them would stay and set fire to the Great Books, if necessary, while the others went up and joined the fight. So they opened the door of the dungeon in which the Great Books were, and one Cockatrice took up his stand by them, ready to blast them with flames. The rest of them clattered up the stairs to the courtyard.
“What are we going to do?” whispered Penelope. “If we all rush down the corridor he’s going to see us and set fire to the Books.”
“Yes,” said Ethelred. “ ’Elp me out of me uniform, miss, quick.”
Penelope helped him out of his uniform and then, before she could stop him, he hopped round the corner and down the corridor toward the dungeon, carrying his lavender water pistol.
“ ’Ere,” shouted Ethelred to the sentry. “ ’Ere, you, sentry, where’s all the others, then?”
“Don’t come any closer,” warned the Cockatrice, “or I’ll blast you with flame.”
“Wot’s the matter with you, then?” asked Ethelred. “I’ve just come to bring you and your Chief an interesting bit of information, I ’ave. Look at this ’ere.”
Ethelred waved his lavender water pistol at the sentry.
“What’s that?” asked the sentry suspiciously.
“I just found a Weasel down one of them drains,” said Ethelred, “and I ’it ’im on the ’ead with a rock. ’E was carrying one of these. These are the things wot the Weasels are knocking your lot out with up there. Deadly, they are. I’m not quite sure ’ow they work, though.”
Ethelred had stopped just outside the dungeon door and was fiddling with the pistol.
“Here, give it to me, I’ll take it to the sergeant,” said the Cockatrice, and he stepped away from the Great Books and into the corridor. As he did so, Ethelred squirted a jet of lavender water straight into his beak. Immediately, the Cockatrice reeled backward, gasping and coughing, sneezing out great sheets of flame. Penelope knew that this was the moment. She turned to the ranks of Toads and Weasels behind her and shouted “Charge!” and then ran down the corridor with the animals hopping and scuttling behind her.
The Cockatrice, seeing this mass of the enemy descending on him, turned to run, and immediately fifty jets of lavender water from the pistols of fifty Toads hit him, and another fifty followed from the pistols of the Weasels. The Cockatrice uttered a strange, gulping cry, twisted round several times, and fell unconscious on his beak.
“Quick,” said Ethelred. “Ten of you Weasels, ten of you Toads—in there to guard them Books.”
As soon as they were safely in the dungeon, Ethelred locked them in and gave Penelope the key.
“Now, you stay ’ere, miss,” he panted. “Me and the rest are going upstairs.”
So saying, he led the rest of the Weasels up the staircase and into the courtyard. Here, the fight was almost over. Half suffocated by the lavender water, the sneezing Cockatrices were being herded together by the triumphant Weasels and tied into bundles. Seeing that he could do nothing very helpful, Ethelred left his Weasels to help in tying up the Cockatrices and went down to the dungeons again. At the bottom of the steps he stopped in horror.
Penelope, standing outside the dungeon door, was unaware that the Cockatrice had regained consciousness and was creeping toward her, its eyes alight with fury. Ethelred, who was unarmed, looked round desperately. Luckily, lying on the floor was a pike which had been dropped by one of the Toads. Picking it up, Ethelred took careful aim and hurled it, so that just as the Cockatrice was going to blast Penelope with a sheet of flame he was hit between the eyes by the pike and fell senseless to the floor.
“Oh, Ethelred, you saved my life,” said Penelope, shuddering as she looked down at the fallen Cockatrice, smoke and flame dribbling from its nostrils.
“Think nothing of it,” said Ethelred modestly. “You saved my life, miss.”
Now great cheering broke out in the courtyard, and over the drawbridge rode H.H. on the King of the Unicorns. He passed under the battlements, scarred and battered by the Griffons’ barrage, through the tattered remains of the gate, split to bits by the Unicorns, and into the courtyard where the sad groups of wheezing Cockatrices were guarded by the Weasels. He stopped in the center of the courtyard, and from the dungeons came a procession of Penelope’s Terrifying Toads, carrying between them the three Great Books of Government on their gold and silver stands. At the sight of them, safe and sound, such a cheer went up that it could be heard all over Mythologia.
Then the King of the Unicorns, carrying H.H. with Parrot on his shoulder, set off toward the Crystal Caves. Penelope and the Terrifying Toads followed behind, carrying the Great Books, and behind them came all the Unicorns, the Griffons, Oswald and the Mermaids, Tabitha proudly carrying her basket of eggs, and all the Weasels, while above them flew balloons full of Firedrakes. With this triumphant procession the Great Books of Government were returned to the Crystal Caves and the safekeeping of Hengist Hannibal Junketberry.
There is not very much more to tell. H.H. banished the Cockatrices to a remote island in the Singing Sea until they learnt to be respectable creatures again. Cockatrice Castle was to be repaired and given to Oswald to start a restaurant in, which pleased him immensely. All Tabitha’s eggs hatched out in due course, ensuring that there would always be Dragons in Mythologia.
The day the children were to leave, H.H. held a special farewell and thank-you lunch for them. This took place on a beach by the Singing Sea. Several great tables were arranged, stretching out into the water like piers or jetties, so that the sea creatures could sit at the sea end, and the land creatures could sit at the land end. It was a magnificent banquet cooked especially by Oswald, and many speeches were made and toasts drunk. At the end, H.H. made a speech.