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