In vain Nikko protested. Lu Tsing’s attendants had told the story so often that everybody was ready to believe it now that they saw the Spider.
“The Spider shall be killed, and Nikko be put into the highest, strongest, darkest tower, with a moat around it, and kept there all her life,” said the Emperor in great anger, “and Lu Tsing shall be Empress of China!”
So they set the Spider down on the floor and called a hundred slaves to come with brooms and kill him. But the hundred slaves all hit each other’s brooms and got so mixed up that they did not hit the Spider at all, so he hid under the Emperor’s couch and when nobody was looking he ran away. He ran to the back-yard where the extra thrones and the Emperor’s beasts were kept.
Here the Snail was just having an argument with a quick-tempered Dragon about which was better, tea or toast. The Dragon said tea. The Snail said toast.
“Stop arguing,” said the Spider. “The best food is rice anyway.” And while the Dragon was still switching his tail and shouting: “Tea, tea, tea!” the Snail stopped and listened to the story of Nikko’s trouble.
“This is awful,” he said, looking forward with one eye and back with the other to make sure nobody was listening. “Have they put Nikko in the tower?”
“Can’t she let herself out of the window? You could creep in and spin a rope for her. She’s not very heavy.”
“But there is a deep moat around the tower,” said the Spider. “I couldn’t get to her, and besides if she let herself down she would drop into the moat.”
“I’ll help you below,” replied the Snail. “You be ready to do your part. Meet me to-night at the edge of the moat!”
Just then one of the slaves appeared with a broom, so the little spider ducked out of sight under a throne. The Snail sat in deep thought for a while; then he went and found the Dragon again, and told him that toast was better than tea.
At night, when the temple-bells had stopped ringing and everyone in the palace was fast asleep, the Snail and the Spider met at the edge of the moat.
“Hop on my back,” whispered the Snail, and slid into the water with the Spider aboard. Softly he floated across the black moat to the tower where Nikko was imprisoned.
Poor Nikko sat weeping by the window. It was cold and dusty and untidy in the tower-room. She had pulled the brocaded shawl tight about her shoulders and had taken off her tiny shoes, for now that she was no longer an Empress she thought she might as well be comfortable. Her parasol lay up-side-down in a corner for she never expected to use it again. The sun never shone in the tower where she was to stay all her life.