were soon obliged to leave again, as the water ran in some parts
of it almost up to the edge.

At length we reached a little cottage, which we were just
entering, when a cat that was sleeping unnoticed by us upon a
chair, jumped down, and would certainly have destroyed me (who
happened to go first) had she not at the same moment tried to
catch my brother, and by that means missed her aim, and so given
us both an opportunity to escape, which we did by scrambling
behind a brick that a child had been playing with by the side of
the door. Fortunately, the brick lay too close to the house for
the cat to get her paw behind it, so as to be able to reach us;
though to avoid it we were obliged to use the greatest precaution,
as she could thrust it in a little way, so that if we had gone one
inch too near either end, she would certainly have dragged us out
by her talons. In this dreadful situation did we spend some
hours, incessantly moving from one end of the brick to the other;
for the moment she had, by the entrance of her paw at one end,
driven us to the other, she stepped over, and again made us
retreat. Think with what dreadful terror our little hearts must
have been oppressed, to see our mortal enemy so closely watching
us, expecting every moment when she shook the brick with her two
forepaws in searching, and with her mouth endeavoured to lift it
up, that she would be so far able to effect her purpose, as to
make it impossible for us to escape her jaws. But, happily for
us, it had somehow or other got so wedged that she could not move
it to any distance; though it kept momentarily increasing our
terrors, by shaking as she strove to turn it.

From this state of horror, however, we were at length delivered by