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Wet Magic they failed to remember the duty that should have followed. They stood there rejoicing in their victory, when by all the rules of the Service they should have rushed back to the armory for fresh weapons.

The omission was fatal. Even as they stood there rejoicing in their cleverness and boldness and in the helpless anger of the enemy, something thin and string-like spread itself around them—their feet caught in string, their fingers caught in string, string tweaked their ears and flattened their noses—string confined their elbows and confused their legs. The Lobster-guarded doorway seemed farther off—and farther, and farther. . . . They turned their heads; they were following backward, and against their will, a retreating enemy.

"Oh, why didn't we do what she said?" breathed Cathay. "Something's happened!"

"I should think it had," said Bernard. "We're caught—in a net.

They were. And a tall Infantryman of the Under Folk was towing them away from Merland as swiftly and as easily as a running child tows a captive air balloon. 134