60 THE SECOND FROGGY FAIRV BOOK.

A shiver of horror passed through Elsie.

“Come with me?” said the little boy to his
enemy, “] Il save you.”

He tried to help the monster to rise, but the
latter was helpless and groaned,

“The steam stifles me. I can’t-move!”

The head of the creature drooped and shrank
back into the body that heaved and rose about it;
the whole appearance of the Toad King altered
until it was as a mountain of lifeless, squalid
flesh. This became round, like a ball, and, just
as the toad life-boat floated near the brink where
it was, it rolled off and directly into the midst of
the boat’s helpless occupants.

The craft upset: the toads filled the scald-
ing water; the steam grew suffocating. And the
little boy caught Elsie’s hand, and ran with Elsie
from the scene of increasing horror. Back, down
the winding stair-case by which they had come,
they hurried, at the rate of two and three steps
a jump.

On the floor below, where were the loudest
noises Elsie ever heard, she peeped through the
aperture of a half open doorway into a sort of
cavern; for the walls and ceiling were of rock.
‘The light was supplied from the mouth of a
furnace into which three dreadful looking old
women were plunging pokers.