I can get you. Only, you must eat as little
as possible. I want you to get very thin. What you feel is not really
hunger--it's only a memory of hunger, and you'll soon get used to it."

He stared at her with a very distressful little face as she crossed the
room making this new announcement; and just as she disappeared through
the trap-door, only her head being visible, she added with great
emphasis, "The thinner you get the better; because the thinner you are
the lighter you are, and the lighter you are the easier it will be to
escape. Remember, the thinner the better--the lighter the better--and
don't ask a lot of questions about it."

With that the trap-door closed over her, and Jimbo was left alone with
her last strange words ringing in his ears.

CHAPTER VII

THE SPELL OF THE EMPTY HOUSE

It was not long before Jimbo realised that the House, and everything
connected with it, spelt for him one message, and one only--a message of
fear. From the first day of his imprisonment the forces of his whole
being shaped themselves without further ado into one intense, single,
concentrated desire to _escape_.

Freedom, escape into the world beyond that terrible high wall, was his
only object, and Miss Lake, the governess, as its symbol, was his only
hope. He asked a lot of questions and listened to a lot of answers, but
all he really cared about was how he was going to escape, and when. All
her other explanations were tedious, and he only half-listened to them.
His faith in her was absolute, his patience unbounded; she had come to
save him, and he knew that before long she would accomplish her end. He
felt a blind and perfect confidence. But, meanwhile, his fear of the
House, and his horror for the secret Being who meant to keep him
prisoner till at length he became one of the troop of Frightened
Children, increased by leaps and bounds.

Presently the trap-door creaked again, and the governess reappeared; in
her hand was a small white jug and a soup plate.

"Thin gruel and skim milk," she explained, pouring out a substance like
paste into the soup plate, and handing him a big wooden spoon.

But Jimbo's hunger had somehow vanished.

"It wasn't real hunger," she told him, "but only a sort of memory of
being hungry. They're trying to feed your broken body now in the
night-nursery, and so you feel a sort of ghostly hunger here even though
you're out of the body."

"It's easily satisfied, at any rate," he said,