hit the liquid below. It vanished with a squelching plop, leaving a small dimple on the surface.
Tansy held her torch out over the stair edge. “That isn’t water down there, ’tis more of a swamp!”
Other toads were crawling upstairs toward them, the dreadful creatures apparently attracted by Shad’s cry and
Tansy’s voice.
Craklyn hid behind Foremole, shuddering. “Ugh! Horrible monsters, keep ’em away from me!”
Butty had been carrying his treasure slung on the end of the silver-headed spear he had found in the rubble.
Untying the bundle, he passed the spear along to Shad.
The otter Gatekeeper began clearing the toads off into the ooze below. Some spread their webs to prevent
themselves from sinking instantly, and these were set upon and torn to shreds by creatures not half their size, who
appeared in packs. At the same time they were being devoured, the toads began eating their tormentors.
The five friends watched, revolted but fascinated by the sight.
“Yurr, they’m all a h’eatin’ each uther!”
“Aye, those small ’uns look like some kind o’ mudfish, they’re blind as the toads!”
“So they all live down here in this slimy darkness, feeding off one another. What an awful existence!”
“Yukk! What are we doin’ in this terrible place? Let’s get out!”
Foremole Diggum tugged against die rope as they began moving. “Hurr no, us’n’s mus’ goiter stay. Lookee!”
They followed the direction his paw was pointing, across the underground morass to a dark hole in the wall at the
cellar’s far side.
Tansy held the torch high. “What is it, Diggum?”
The mole’s reply was prompt and confident. “That thurr’s a tunnel dugged boi moles, oi’d stake moi snowt on et,
oi surrtinly would, ’tis a mole tunnel, ’twill lead oopward!”
Shad shook his head doubtfully. “Are you shore ’tis a mole tunnel, mate? ’S a long way off.”
Diggum Foremole would not be shaken from his belief. “Oi said ’twurr, din’t oi, oi’m ee Foremoler, oo’d know
better!”
Friar Butty stared unhappily across the expanse of cannibal-infested bog.
“If that’s the way out, then how do we get to it?”
A small meeting was being convened in the kitchen at Redwall Abbey, It was for elders, though the Dibbuns had
invited themselves along too, because there were always plenty of tasty bits to nibble at in the kitchens.
Viola Bankvole presided. “Mother Abbess always appoints me in her place when she isn’t here, so if you don’t
mind I’ll take charge. Gubbio, get your head out of that oven, please!”
Mother Buscol shooed the little mole from the oven, nipping back to the table just in time to stop Russano the
badgerbabe grabbing a bowl of soup. “Indeed to goodness, Viola,” she said, passing a paw across her flustered brow,
“what is it you’re wantin’ now? Can’t you see we’ve got our paws full as H is?”
Viola shook her head primly at die old squirrel. “Abbess, Craklyn, Foremole, Shad, and young Butty are still
missing. Sloey! Put that ladle down this instant! Now, have you all searched properly?”
Pellit the dormouse tried to wrest the ladle from Sloey’s grasp. “Well, I searched the entire orchard and down as
far as the gatehouse, Sister. I don’t think Ginko was looking very hard, though.”
Ginko die Bellringer glared across die table at Pellit. “I done my share o’ searchin’. Found you asleep ’neath the
stairs in my bell tower, didn’t I!”
Gurrbowl Cellarmole, who was sitting with Taunoc and Or-occa, tending the owlchicks, ventured a suggestion:
“May’ap they’m losed theyselves unner ee gurt ’ole at south wall.”
An owlchick fumbled itself loose from her and lumbered into the bowl of soup that lay nearby. Viola leaned over
and fished the little bundle of downy feathers out. “Good job that soup was cold. Under the south wall, you say?
Ridiculous! What would our Mother Abbess be doing grubbing about down there? Personally I think she may have
gone up into the Abbey attics to look for something, and taken the others with her. Barfle, stop pulling Sloey’s ears.
She’ll end up looking like a hare. What do you think, mister Taunoc?”
“About what, madam, the Abbess in the attics, or Sloey looking like a hare?”
“Silly! I’m talking about the Abbess in the attics!”
The Little Owl ruffled his feathers and blinked at her. “Silly yourself, madam! All this meeting has achieved is to
get one of my chicks soaked with soup. Wherever the Abbess is at this moment, it will be exactly where she wants to
be. Your Abbess is a hedgehog, old and wise. She will return in good time.”
Russano looked at Taunoc and spoke the only word he knew. “Nut!”
Sloey the mousebabe managed to hit Pellit a good whack on his nose with the ladle he was trying to take from her.
Reaching over to assist Pellit, Viola Bankvole upset the bowl of cold soup, and it spilled all over Mother Buscol’s
apron. An owlchick fastened its small sharp beak on Ginko’s paw, who yelped with pain and woke the remaining
owlchick, who had been sleeping. The owlchick set up a din. The meeting dissolved in disarray, with Viola Bankvole
struggling to maintain her dignity in die position of deputy Abbess.
“Er, continue the search. I will inform you later of when the next meeting is to be held. Be about your business
now!”
Viola was about to make a stately exit, when she slipped on a patch of cold soup diat had dripped from the table,
and sat down hard on the stone floor.
The molebabe Gubbio tried pulling her upright by the apron strings, lecturing the bankvole severely: “Doant ee
play abowt onna floor, marm, you’m get drefful dusty!”
The meeting ended widi everybeast of the opinion that without a Mother Abbess to run things, Redwall Abbey
would grind to a halt.
Underground, young Friar Butty made his way back up to a dry step, where he sat nursing his rumbling stomach.
“Ooh, am I ’ungry, I’ve never been so ’ungry in all me life!” Abbess Tansy sympathized with Butty, but she could not
show it. “We’re all hungry, but sitting complaining about it isn’t going to do us any good. Look at Shad. He’s bigger
and hungrier than the rest of us, but he isn’t moaning, are you, Shad?”
The otter, who was perched on the bottom stair amid the mud, called back up to Tansy, “No I ain’t, marm. I think
I’ve got a plan t’get us across to yonder mole tunnel!”
Picking their way carefully down the muddy steps, Tansy and the others joined Shad. He shifted a big venturesome
toad off into the swamp with his spearbutt before explaining. “See, about halfways along the wall there, ’tis a chain,
hangin’ from a ring set high in the stone. If’n we could get hold o’ that chain, I reckon we could swing across to the
ledge over yonder an’ make our way along it to the mole tunnel.”
Craklyn studied the scheme, looking doubtful. “It’d be a mighty big swing needed to get onto that ledge, and look,
the ledge itself is piled high with those loathsome creatures. But the main difficulty would be getting hold of the chain.
It’s much too far away for us to reach.”
The thin, rusty chain hung down into the mud, well out of reach by about eight spearlengths. Shad scratched his
chin thoughtfully. “Hmm, yore right, marm. I could soon clear those ole toads off’n the ledge when I got there, but
’ow t’get the chain over ’ere, that’s the problem. Any ideas, mates?”
“Burr aye, farsten summat to ee rope an’ try to snare ee chain!”
Shad’s hearty laugh echoed boomingly ’round the vast cellar space. “Haharr, leave it to our ole molemate. Good