Ahab's Adventure's In Wonderland; or The Rabbit

Chapter Fifty-Two

The Queen, satisfied that the gardeners had been dispatched, now turned her attention to a new direction. 'Can you play croquet?'

The soldiers were silent, and looked at Ahab, as the question was evidently meant for him.

'Yes!' shouted Ahab.

'Come on, then!' roared the Queen, and Ahab joined the procession, wondering very much what would happen next. Meanwhile, Starbuck and Franklin fell in well behind the Queen, and I next to them.

'It's--it's a very fine day!' said a timid voice at my side. We looked up to find we walking next to the White Rabbit, who was peeping anxiously into his face.

'Very,' said Starbuck. 'You must realize you are in very grave danger?'

'Hush! Hush!' said the Rabbit in a low, hurried tone. He looked anxiously over his shoulder as he spoke, and then raised himself upon tiptoe, put his mouth close to her ear, and whispered 'She's under sentence of execution.'

'Who are you talking about?' whispered Starbuck, visibly confused. He looked up ahead and we all noticed that Ahab was looking about in all directions, obviously trying to find Moby Dick, but the crowd of knaves in between us obscured him from view.

'Did you say 'What a pity!'?' the Rabbit asked.

'No, I didn't,' said Starbuck: 'I don't think it's at all a pity. I said 'Who are you talking about?''

'She boxed the Queen's ears--' the Rabbit began. Franklin gave a little scream of laughter. 'Oh, hush!' the Rabbit whispered in a frightened tone. 'The Queen will hear you! You see, she came rather late, and the Queen said--'

'Get to your places!' shouted the Queen in a voice of thunder, and people began running about in all directions, tumbling up against each other; however, they got settled down in a minute or two, and the game began. I had never seen such a curious croquet-ground in all my life; it was all ridges and furrows; the balls were live hedgehogs, the mallets live flamingoes, and the soldiers had to double themselves up and to stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches.

The chief difficulty Ahab found at first was in managing his flamingo: he succeeded in getting its body tucked away, comfortably enough, under his arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as he had got its neck nicely straightened out, and was going to give the hedgehog a blow with its head, it WOULD twist itself round and look up in his face, with such a puzzled expression that he could not help bursting out laughing: and when he had got its head down, and was going to begin again, it was very provoking to find that the hedgehog had unrolled itself, and was in the act of crawling away: besides all this, there was generally a ridge or furrow in the way wherever he wanted to send the hedgehog to, and, as the doubled-up soldiers were always getting up and walking off to other parts of the ground, Ahab soon came to the conclusion that it was a very difficult game indeed.

The players all played at once without waiting for turns, quarrelling all the while, and fighting for the hedgehogs; and in a very short time the Queen was in a furious passion, and went stamping about, and shouting 'Off with his head!' or 'Off with her head!' about once in a minute.

Ahab began to feel very uneasy: to be sure, he had not as yet had any dispute with the Queen, but he knew that it might happen any minute, 'and then,' said he, 'what would become of me? They're dreadfully fond of beheading people here; the great wonder is, that there's any one left alive!'

He was looking about for some way of escape, and wondering whether he could get away without being seen, when he noticed a curious appearance in the air: it puzzled him very much at first, but, after watching it a minute or two, he made it out to be a grin, and he said, 'It's the Cheshire Cat: I shall go talk to it.'

'How are you getting on?' said the Cat, as soon as there was mouth enough for it to speak with.

Ahab waited till the eyes appeared, and then nodded. 'It's no use speaking to it,' he thought, 'till its ears have come, or at least one of them.' In another minute the whole head appeared, and then Ahab put down his flamingo, and began an account of the game, feeling very glad he had someone to listen to him. The Cat seemed to think that there was enough of it now in sight, and no more of it appeared.

'I don't think they play at all fairly,' Ahab began, in rather a complaining tone, 'and they all quarrel so dreadfully one can't hear oneself speak--and they don't seem to have any rules in particular; at least, if there are, nobody attends to them--and you've no idea how confusing it is all the things being alive; for instance, there's the arch I've got to go through next walking about at the other end of the ground--and I should have croqueted the Queen's hedgehog just now, only it ran away when it saw mine coming!'

'How do you like the Queen?' said the Cat in a low voice.

'Not at all,' said Ahab: 'she's so extremely--' Just then she noticed that the Queen was close behind her, listening: so she went on, '--likely to win, that it's hardly worth while finishing the game.'

The Queen smiled and passed on.

'Who ARE you talking to?' said the King, going up to Ahab, and looking at the Cat's head with great curiosity.

'It's a friend of mine--a Cheshire Cat,' said Ahab: 'allow me to introduce it.'

'I don't like the look of it at all,' said the King: 'however, it may kiss my hand if it likes.'

'I'd rather not,' the Cat remarked.

'Don't be impertinent,' said the King, 'and don't look at me like that!' He got behind Ahab as he spoke.

'A cat may look at a king,' said Ahab. 'I've read that in some book, but I don't remember where.'

'Well, it must be removed,' said the King very decidedly, and he called the Queen, who was passing at the moment, 'My dear! I wish you would have this cat removed!'

The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. 'Off with his head!' she said, without even looking round.

'I'll fetch the executioner myself,' said the King eagerly, and he hurried off.

Ahab thought he might as well go back, and see if he could find Moby Dick, as he heard the Queen's voice in the distance, screaming with passion. He had already heard her sentence three of the players to be executed for having missed their turns, and he did not like the look of things at all, as the game was in such confusion that he never knew whether it was his turn or not. So he went in search of the White Rabbit.

But first, he found his hedgehog was engaged in a fight with another hedgehog, which seemed to Ahab an excellent opportunity for croqueting one of them with the other: the only difficulty was, that his flamingo was gone across to the other side of the garden, where Ahab could see it trying in a helpless sort of way to fly up into a tree.

By the time he had caught the flamingo and brought it back, the fight was over, and both the hedgehogs were out of sight: 'but it doesn't matter much,' said Ahab, 'as all the arches are gone from this side of the ground.' So he tucked it away under his arm, that it might not escape again, and went looking all over the place looking for Moby Dick. The White Rabbit was nowhere in sight, however, and so he thought he ask his new friend if he could be of any assistance.