aded leader, 'that we are in bondage.
And the Great Sloth wearies us with the singing of choric songs when we
long to be asleep. But none can deliver us. There is no hope. There is
nothing good but sleep. And of that we have never enough.'

'Oh, dear,' said Lucy despairingly, 'aren't there any women here? They
always have more sense than men.'

'What you say is rude as well as untrue,' said the red leader; 'but to
avoid fuss we will lead you and your fierce dog to the huts of the
women. And then perhaps you will allow us to go to sleep.'

The huts were poor and mean, little fenced-in corners in the ruins of
what had once been a great and beautiful city, with gardens and streams;
but now the streams were dry and nothing grew in the gardens but weeds
and pine-apples.

But the women--who all wore green tunics of the same stiff shape as the
men's--were not quite so sleepy as their husbands. They brought Lucy
fresh pine-apples to eat, and were dreamily interested in the cut of her
clothes and the begging accomplishments of Brenda. And from the women
she learned several things about the Somnolentians. They all wore the
same shaped tunics, only the colours differed. The women's were green,
the drawers of water wore red, the attendants of the Great Sloth wore
black, and the pine-apple gatherers wore yellow.

And as Lucy sat at the door of the hut and watched the people in these
four colours going lazily about among the ruins she suddenly knew what
they were, and she exclaimed:

'I know what you are; you're Halma men.'

Instantly every man within earshot made haste to get away, and the women
whispered, 'Hush! It is death to breathe that name.'

'But why?' Lucy asked.

'Halma was the great captain of our race,' said the woman, 'and the
Great Sloth fears that if we hear his name it will rouse us and we shall
break from bondage and become once more a free people.'

Lucy determined that they should hear that name pretty often; but before
she could speak it again the woman sighed, and remarking 'The Great
Sloth sleeps,' fell asleep then and there over the pine-apple she was
peeling. A vast silence settled on the city, and next moment Lucy also
slept. She slept for hours.

. . . . . . .

It took her some time to find the keeper of the padlock key, and when
she had found him he refused to use it. Nothing would move him, not even
the threat of the fierceness of Brenda.

At last,