wanted to hold each other’s hand behind the dwarf’s back. But the moment their hands began to approach, the back of the cat began to grow long, and its hump to grow high; and, in a moment more, Richard found himself crawling wearily up a steep hill, whose ridge rose against the stars, while a cold wind blew drearily over it. Not a habitation was in sight; and Alice had vanished from his eyes. He felt, however, that she must be somewhere on the other side, and so climbed and climbed to get over the brow of the hill, and down to where he thought she must be. But the longer he climbed, the farther off the top of the hill seemed; till at last he sank quite exhausted, and—must I confess it?—very nearly began to cry. To think of being separated from Alice all at once, and in such a disagreeable way! But he fell a-thinking instead, and soon said to himself: “This must be some trick of that wretched old man. Either this mountain is a cat or it is not. If it is a mountain, this won’t hurt it; if it is a cat, I hope it will.” With that, he pulled out his pocketknife, and feeling for a soft place, drove it at one blow up to the handle in the side of the mountain.
A terrific shriek was the first result; and the second, that Alice and he sat looking at each other across the old man’s hump, from which the cat-a-mountain had vanished. Their host sat staring at the blank fireplace, without ever turning round, pretending to know nothing of what had taken place.
“Come along, Alice,” said Richard, rising. “This won’t do. We won’t stop here.”
Alice rose at once, and put her hand in his. They walked towards the door. The old man took no notice of them. The moon was shining brightly through the window; but instead of stepping out into the moonlight when they opened the door, they stepped into a great beautiful hall, through the high gothic windows of which the same moon was shining. Out of this hall they could find no way, except by a