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ear: ‘ How about a trip to Playland, eh? ’ But, as before, when she looked round, nobody near at hand seemed likely to be the person who had spoken.
    Still, she felt that she had been given some clue at least. Tired, but not disheartened, she went back to Mr Greenaway’s warehouse.
    While she was out, a messenger had brought the token from St James’s Palace.
    ‘It’s mighty puny,’ observed Is, studying it without excitement.
    ‘All the easier to carry on your travels,’ pointed out Wally.
    The token was a tiny disc, not much bigger than a silver fourpenny piece, made from slivers of black and green stone, cunningly carved and fitted together, so that on one side of the disc appeared a green lion rampant on a black background, and on the reverse side a black lion set against green. Mr Greenaway, feeling and turning it most delicately with his enormous rugged fingers, remarked that it felt to him as if it were carved out of jade and jet, a wondrous clever piece of work, not fashioned in this land, he’d reckon, but in Chiny or Peru, some such place where they’d craftsmen that’d take years over a job like this.
    ‘If I was you, dearie, I’d sew it, case an’ all into the hem of your jacket, where it’ll be safe and won’t slip out, accidental-like, into somebody’s view. For in the parts you might be off to, jist having a token like that in your keeping might go agin ye.’
    ‘Might be the end of her,’ said Wally gloomily, frying sausages for supper.
    Is thought Mr Greenaway’s advice was worth following, and unpicked an inch of jacket-lining. While she was sewing the disc, in its tiny chamois-leather pouch, safely out of sight, she asked,
    ‘Mr Greenaway, did you ever hear tell of Playland?’
    Mr Greenaway shook his head, but Wally said at once, ‘Don’t you remember, Is, there used to be a song of your da’s that went, ‘If I could find my way to Playland, you’d never see me no more; Playland, the happy and gay land, where nobody is poor, and no apple ever has a core – ’?’
    ‘I’d forgotten,’ said Is slowly, ‘but now I remember. Is there really sich a place?’
    ‘Not as I ever heard tell on.’
    Wally served the sausages, for simplicity’s sake, on a slice of bread.
    ‘Best eat hearty while you can, young ’un,’ he said.
    Mr Greenaway munched his in silence with a troubled expression on his face. It was plain that, while from various points of view he felt it proper for Is to undertake this errand, he was not very happy about the plan.
    ‘I sent a message to his majesty,’ he said, ‘by the chap as brought the token, to say as how, if you don’t come back – suppose some mischief was to come to ye – your sister Penny should be took care of. Benefit, like.’
    ‘Care of Penny?’ said Is, surprised. ‘Why, she’s allus taken pretty sharp care of herself. There’s not many – and that goes for wolves too – as comes out on top of Penny. Why should she be took care of?’
    ‘Well, dearie, as you’re, in a manner o’ speaking, doing a job of work for his Grace, ’tis only right that you, or anyway your kin, should be the better for it.’
    ‘I haven’t found his Grace’s boy yet,’ Is pointed out. ‘And may never do. Still,’ thinking it over, ‘that ain’t a bad notion. Poor old Penny-lope hain’t had much luck up to now. The Dutchman went off and left her . . . Mind you – ’ bursting out laughing, ‘ – I’d be sorry for the chap as took Penny the Benefit. He’s like to get his ears trimmed.’
    But still, it gave Is a feeling of comfort, as she climbed into her hammock, to think that Penny, who had argued so fiercely against her going and been so surly on leave-taking, might possibly derive some good from the business. You never knew, after all.
    Is fell asleep, and instantly began to dream about a black, black forest, with water trickling among the roots of the trees. And there were voices calling for help . . .
    On the third day of