It was a very strange sound, indeed--most odd, and unlike any other sounds the children had ever heard.

At least, they had heard sounds as much like it as a toy engine's whistle is like a steam siren's.
'The carpet's come back,' said Robert; and the others felt that he was right.
'But what has it brought with it ?' asked Jane.

'It sounds like Leviathan, that great beast.' 'It couldn't have been made in India, and have brought elephants?
Even baby ones would be rather awful in that room,' said Cyril.

'I vote we take it in turns to squint through the keyhole.' They did--in the order of their ages.

The Phoenix, being the eldest by some thousands of years, was entitled to the first peep.