Page:Little Ellie and Other Tales (1850).djvu/74

Rh doings! Oh, were the little maiden with me in the boat, darkness and all else were indifferent to me!”

At the same moment a large water-rat, that lived in the drain, made his appearance.

“Where’s your passport?” asked the rat; “out with your passport!”

But the soldier was silent, and held his musket the tighter. The boat drove onward, the rat pursuing. How horribly he gnashed his teeth, and how dreadful it was to hear him cry out to the straws and floating bits of wood:

“Stop him! stop him! he has defrauded the customs! He has not shown his passport!”

But the stream grew stronger and stronger. Already could the soldiers see the light of day before he got to the end of the drain, but he heard, too, a roaring sound, at which the bravest heart would have quaked. Only imagine! at the spot where the drain ended, the water of the gutter was precipitated headlong into a great canal: for the