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After a while the noise seemed gradually to die away, till all
was dead silence, and Alice lifted up her head in some alarm.
There was no one to be seen, and her first thought was that she
must have been dreaming about the Lion and the Unicorn and those
still lying at her feet, on which she had tried to cut the plum-
cake, `So I wasn't dreaming, after all,' she said to herself,
`unless--unless we're all part of the same dream. Only I do
hope it's MY dream, and not the Red King's! I don't like
belonging to another person's dream,' she went on in a rather
complaining tone: `I've a great mind to go and wake him, and see
what happens!'
At this moment her thoughts were interrupted by a loud shouting
of `Ahoy! Ahoy! Check!' and a Knight dressed in crimson armour
came galloping down upon her, brandishing a great club. Just as
he reached her, the horse stopped suddenly: `You're my
prisoner!' the Knight cried, as he tumbled off his horse.
Startled as she was, Alice was more frightened for him than for
herself at the moment, and watched him with some anxiety as he
mounted again. As soon as he was comfortably in the saddle, he
began once more `You're my--' but here another voice broke in
`Ahoy! Ahoy! Check!' and Alice looked round in some surprise
for the new enemy.
This time it was a White Knight. He drew up at Alice's side,
and tumbled off his horse just as the Red Knight had done: then
he got on again, and the two Knights sat and looked at each other
for some time without speaking. Alice looked from one to the
other in some bewilderment.
`She's MY prisoner, you know!' the Red Knight said at last.
`Yes, but then I came and rescued her!' the White Knight
replied.
`Well, we must fight for her, then,' said the Red Knight, as he
took up his helmet (which hung from the saddle, and was something
the shape of a horse's head), and put it on.
`You will observe the Rules of Battle, of course?' the White
Knight remarked, putting on his helmet too.
`I always do,' said the Red Knight, and they began banging away
at each other with such fury that Alice got behind a tree to be
out of the way of the blows.
`I wonder, now, what the Rules of Battle are,' she said to
herself, as she watched the fight, timidly peeping out from her
hiding-place: `one Rule seems to be, that if one Knight hits the
other, he knocks him off his horse, and if he misses, he tumbles
off himself--and another Rule seems to be that they hold their
clubs with their arms, as if they were Punch and Judy--What a
noise they make when they tumble! Just like a whole set of fire-
irons falling into the fender! And how quiet the horses are!
They let them get on and off them just as if they were tables!'
Another Rule of Battle, that Alice had not noticed, seemed to
be that they always fell on their heads, and the battle ended
with their both falling off in this way, side by side: when they
got up again, they shook hands, and then the Red Knight mounted
and galloped off.
`It was a glorious victory, wasn't it?' said the White Knight,
as he came up panting.
`I don't know,' Alice said doubtfully. `I don't want to be
anybody's prisoner. I want to be a Queen.'
`So you will, when you've crossed the next brook,' said the
White Knight. `I'll see you safe to the end of the wood--and
then I must go back, you know. That's the end of my move.'
`Thank you very much,' said Alice. `May I help you off with
your helmet?' It was evidently more than he could manage by
himself; however, she managed to shake him out of it at last.
`Now one can breathe more easily,' said the Knight, putting
back his shaggy hair with both hands, and turning his gentle face
and large mild eyes to Alice. She thought she had never seen
such a strange-looking soldier in all her life.
He was dressed in tin armour, which seemed to fit him very
badly, and he had a queer-shaped little deal box fastened across
his shoulder, upside-down, and with the lid hanging open. Alice
looked at it with great curiosity.
`I see you're admiring my little box.' the Knight said in a
friendly tone. `It's my own invention--to keep clothes and
sandwiches in. You see I carry it upside-down, so that the rain
can't get in.'
`But the things can get OUT,' Alice gently remarked. `Do you
know the lid's open?'
`I didn't know it,' the Knight said, a shade of vexation
passing over his face. `Then all the things much have fallen
out! And the box is no use without them.' He unfastened it as
he spoke, and was just going to throw it into the bushes,
when a sudden thought seemed to strike him, and he hung it carefully
on a tree. `Can you guess why I did that?' he said to Alice.
Alice shook her head.
`In hopes some bees may make a nest in it--then I should get the honey.'
`But you've got a bee-hive--or something like one--fastened to
the saddle,' said Alice.
`Yes, it's a very good bee-hive,' the Knight said in a
discontented tone, `one of the best kind. But not a single bee
has come near it yet. And the other thing is a mouse-trap. I
suppose the mice keep the bees out--or the bees keep the mice
out, I don't know which.'
`I was wondering what the mouse-trap was for,' said Alice. `It
isn't very likely there would be any mice on the horse's back.'
`Not very likely, perhaps,' said the Knight: `but if they DO
come, I don't choose to have them running all about.'
`You see,' he went on after a pause, `it's as well to be
provided for EVERYTHING. That's the reason the horse has all
those anklets round his feet.'
`But what are they for?' Alice asked in a tone of great
curiosity.
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