Part 8

The French Frog still was singing, and each note, caught and re-echoed overhead, crept down the boughs and rippled to the shore.

So far so good. His goal was plainly visible. But how to get there? He made a bee-line for the water's edge, and tumbled down the bank.

His first idea, to swim, was soon abandoned.

With no clear mark by which to set his course he might swim on till nightfall. But if he crept along close to the water? This seemed a certainty, so off he started.

It was uneven going. Sometimes a stretch of sticky mud, sometimes the mazy reed-stems, and sometimes, where the bank was hollowed out, deep water.

The Natterjack was nimble on his feet, and scuttling, crawling, swimming, made good progress. Before he paused, the furze-bush rose above him. Once in the shade of this, he moved discreetly. He slid from stone to stone, and at each stone he rose to reconnoitre. At the fifth stone, a bulky slanting one, he sighted the French Frog. The French Frog sat absorbed in his own harmonies, his mouthpiece taut, to right and left of it two filmy bubble spheres, now swelling now collapsing.

"brek-ek-ek-ek-ek-ek-ek-ek-EX!"

"KO-ax! KO-ax! KO-ax!"

It sounded like a challenge.

The last notes struck the listener squarely. He too could sing. Had he not sung against the wood-pecker, yaffle for yaffle, note for note? He swelled himself to bursting point, shut both his eyes, strained to their uttermost the voice-chords underneath his tongue, and loosed one mighty "Yaup!" It cut the last "Ko-ax" in half, and as its rattle spent itself, he looked to see what came of it. He looked in vain. The French Frog was not there.

The Natterjack at first was jubilant (a signal victory this) but quiet reflection sobered him.

His mission was to bring the French Frog with him. Now there was no French Frog to bring. He searched five yards each way, then gloomily retraced his steps.

He found the King Toad sleeping, and pausing at a prudent range, croaked nervously.

The King Toad made no sign.

He croaked again, and louder.

The King Toad moved uneasily. His eyebrows twitched, and one eye half revealed itself. Upper and under lids stayed fast, but, in their crescent interval, a third lid fluttered, a filmy, shadowy, cobweb thing, which brushed aside the dream-mists.

So in due order, decorously, to open round-eyed vision. The Natterjack was palpably distressed.

His mouth drooped dismally; he shuffled each squat foot in turn.

At last the King Toad spoke.

"I see a Natterjack," he said, "a starveling, mouse-legged Natterjack. I sent for a French Frog."

"Sire," said the Natterjack, his voice a-quiver, "I f-found him, but he v-vanished."

"Fetch him," thundered the King Toad.

The Natterjack fled headlong.

"I shall have to find him," he muttered to himself.

He stumbled on the Salamander. The Salamander, after working for an hour, had partially concealed himself. His smiling face alone was visible, framed by the grass-stems.

"Have--you--seen--the--French--Frog?" said the Natterjack, as loudly and as plainly as he could.

The Salamander turned his face away and smiled across his shoulder.

"Have--you--seen--the--French--Frog?" the Natterjack repeated.