"I smell something sweet," Suok said suddenly, stopping under a lighted window.
Instead of raising her finger for attention, as people usually do, she raised her black pistol.
By the time the Guards came running, they were at the top of the tree.
In a second they had reached the main window from the top branches.
It was the very same window through which the balloon man had flown in the day before.
It was the Palace bakery.
Here, despite the late hour and the alarm that had been sounded, work was in full swing.
The pastrycooks and the kitchen-boys in white caps dashed back and forth: they were preparing a very special fruit dessert for the next day's dinner, to celebrate the return of the doll of Tutti the Heir.
They decided not to have a cake this time, for who could be sure that another flying guest would not ruin the French cream and the very delicious candied fruit?
There was a huge pot of boiling water in the middle of the bakery.
Clouds of white steam rose from it, filling the entire room.
The kitchen-boys were having a grand time cutting up the fruit in the foggy kitchen.
Then, through the clouds of steam the cooks and pastrycooks saw something terrible.
The branches outside the window dipped, the leaves rustled as before a storm, and two people appeared on the window-sill: a red-headed giant and a little girl.
"Hands up!" Prospero said.
He was holding a pistol in each hand.
"Don't make a move!" Suok shouted, raising her pistol.
Two dozen white sleeves flapped in the air without waiting for the strangers to repeat their commands.
And then the pots began to fly!
It was the end of the shining glass and copper, steaming sweet, fragrant world of the Palace bakery.
The gunsmith was looking for the main pot.
That was his only escape, and the only escape for the little friend who had saved him.
They turned over pots, tossed about frying-pans, funnels, dishes and plates.
Glass fell crashing to the floor, spilled flour rose up in white clouds like a sandstorm in the Sahara; there were almonds, raisins and candied cherries all over the floor; sugar flowed from the high shelves like waterfalls; the flood of sweet syrup rose a foot deep on the floor; water splashed, fruit bounced about, stacks of copper pots rolled across the kitchen.
Everything was topsy-turvy.
Sometimes you have a dream like that, but you know it's a dream and you can do anything you feel like doing.
"Look!" Suok shouted. "Here it is!"
They had found what they were looking for.
The top of the pot flew off into the shambles.
It landed in the sticky red, green and yellow lake of syrup.
Prospero saw that the pot had no bottom.
"Hurry!" Suok said. "I'll follow you."
The gunsmith climbed into the pot.
When he had disappeared in the tunnel, he heard shouting coming from the bakery above,
Suok had no time to climb into the pot.
The panther, after striking terror in the park and the Palace, had found its way to the bakery.
There were splotches of blood on it where the Guards had wounded it.
The pastrycooks and kitchen-boys all piled into a far corner.
Suok forgot about her pistol and threw a pear at the panther.
The beast leaped after Prospero, going head first into the pot.
It slithered down the dark, narrow tunnel, its long black tail sticking out of the pot.
Then the tail disappeared, too.
Suok clapped her hands to her eyes.
"Prospero!
Oh, Prospero!" she wailed.
The pastrycooks doubled up with evil laughter.
Just then the Palace Guards charged into the bakery.
Their uniforms were torn, their faces were bloody, their pistols were still smoking. They had been fighting the panther.
"The panther will tear Prospero to bits!
I don't care about anything now.