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As a rule the most successful sorties are those in the early morning. We are called while it's still dark. Sleepily I try to reconcile the French orderly's muttered, C'est l'heure, monsieur, that rouses me from slumber, with the strictly American words and music of "When That Midnight Choo Choo Leaves for Alabam'" warbled by a particularly wide-awake pilot in the next room.
So soon as he had recovered breath the starling told them that half-an-hour since Choo Hoo had himself crossed the border, and driving in the outposts of the starlings, despite the most desperate resistance, had passed the front line of the hills. At this news the uproar was tremendous, and for some time not a word could be heard.
But where Choo ruled discipline and security prevailed, and as far as his power reached a firm and orderly government existed. Meanwhile the Mongols had a host of evils with which to contend. Rebel leaders had risen in various quarters, some of them making more progress than Choo, but winning the execration rather than the love of the people by their rapine and violence.
What will be the result I cannot think, and I am not without serious apprehensions myself, for I have hitherto held undisputed possession of this domain. But Choo Hoo is so despotic, and has such an immense army at his back, that I am not at all certain he will respect my neutrality. As for Kapchack, he shivers in his claws at the very name of the mighty rebel."
He replied that he would shoot off his cannon-stick with the greatest pleasure, if they would show him in which direction they expected Choo Hoo to come. So the hare, the squirrel, and Cloctaw, with all the crowd following behind, took him to a gap in the hedge round the copse on the western side, and pointed out to him the way the enemy would come.
As Orlando sat watching the sunset, Louise's last words to him, "Oh, Orlando!" kept ringing in his ears. He thought of what had happened that very morning before he started for the hills. Soon after daybreak, Li Choo the Chinaman had come slip-slopping to him at Slow Down Ranch, and had said to him without any preliminaries, or any reason for his coming: "I bling Mlissy Mazaline what you like.
They dare not come openly, but fly by night, for Kapchack's hawks are always hovering about; well enough he knows the importance of this secret, and they would pay for their temerity with their lives if they were seen. All I am afraid of is lest the weasel or the fox, in their eagerness for empire, should betray the secret to Choo Hoo.
"All that livelong night Choo Hoo, once more beginning to hope, flew to and fro from tree to tree, endeavouring to animate his host afresh with spirit for the fight; and as messengers continually came in with fresh particulars of the confusion in Kapchack's kingdom, he began to succeed.
"Ouch!" he chattered, rubbing the sore place with his paw. Mappo turned the cocoanut over and over again. He was looking for some hole in it through which he could put his paw and get out the white meat. But he saw none. "Maybe I could open it," said Choo, gently. "No, we must let Mappo have a good try," said Mrs. Monkey. "Then, if he cannot do it, you may all have a turn.
"Now, Choo Hoo, as I said, being an adventurer, with no more property than the ancestral ash, but a pigeon of very extraordinary genius, considered within himself that if any one could but persuade these mighty and incredible myriads to follow him he could over-run the entire country.
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