their loathing; for it does not become adventurers to care who eats
their bones. Be this as it may, they edged away from the mipt, and
came almost at once to the wizened tree, the goal-post of their
adventure, and knew that beside them was the crack in the world and
the bridge from Bad to Worse, and that underneath them stood the rocky
house of the Owner of the Box.

This was their simple plan: to slip into the corridor in the upper
cliff; to run softly down it (of course with naked feet) under the
warning to travellers that is graven upon stone, which interpreters
take to be "It Is Better Not"; not to touch the berries that are there
for a purpose, on the right side going down; and so to come to the
guardian on his pedestal who had slept for a thousand years and should
be sleeping still; and go in through the open window. One man was to
wait outside by the crack in the World until the others came out with
the golden box, and, should they cry for help, he was to threaten at
once to unfasten the iron clamp that kept the crack together. When the
box was secured they were to travel all night and all the following
day, until the cloud-banks that wrapped the slopes of Mluna were well
between them and the Owner of the Box.

The door in the cliff was open. They passed without a murmur down the
cold steps, Slith leading them all the way. A glance of longing, no
more, each gave to the beautiful berries. The guardian upon his
pedestal was still asleep. Slorg climbed by a ladder, that Slith knew
where to find, to the iron clamp across the crack in the World, and
waited beside it with a chisel in his hand, listening closely for
anything untoward, while his friends slipped into the house; and no
sound came. And presently Slith and Sippy found the golden box:
everything seemed happening as they had planned, it only remained to