The children dug and they dug and they dug, and their hands got
sandy and hot and red, and their faces got damp and shiny. The
Lamb had tried to eat the sand, and had cried so hard when he found
that it was not, as he had supposed, brown sugar, that he was now
tired out, and was lying asleep in a warm fat bunch in the middle
of the half-finished castle. This left his brothers and sisters
free to work really hard, and the hole that was to come out in
Australia soon grew so deep that Jane, who was called Pussy for
short, begged the others to Stop.

'Suppose the bottom of the hole gave way suddenly,' she said, 'and
you tumbled out among the little Australians, all the sand would
get in their eyes.'

'Yes,' said Robert; 'and they would hate us, and throw stones at
us, and not let us see the kangaroos, or opossums, or blue-gums, or
Emu Brand birds, or anything.'

Cyril and Anthea knew that Australia was not quite so near as all
that, but they agreed to stop using the spades and go on with their
hands. This was quite easy, because the sand at the bottom of the
hole was very soft and fine and dry, like sea-sand. And there were
little shells in it.

'Fancy it having been wet sea here once, all sloppy and shiny,'
said Jane, 'with fishes and conger-eels and coral and mermaids.'

'And masts of ships and wrecked Spanish treasure. I wish we could
find a gold doubloon, or something,' Cyril said.