O Cheri, what shall we do ?" Hugh stood still and considered.
"I think," he said at last, "I think the time's come for whistling." And before Jeanne could ask him what he meant, he gave three clear, short whistles, and then waited to see the effect.
It was a most unexpected one.

Hugh had anticipated nothing else than the sudden appearance, somehow and somewhere, of Monsieur Dudu himself, as large as life--possibly, in this queer country of surprises, where they found themselves, a little larger! When and how he would appear Hugh was perfectly at a loss to imagine--he might fly down from the sky; he might spring up from the water; he might just suddenly stand before them without their having any idea how he had come.

Hugh laughed to himself at the thought of Jeanne's astonishment, and after all it was Jeanne who first drew his attention to what was really happening.
"Hark, Cheri, hark!" she cried, "what a queer noise! What can it be ?" Hugh's attention had been so taken up in staring about in every direction for the raven that he had not noticed the sound which Jeanne had heard, and which now increased every moment.
It was a soft, swishy sound--as if innumerable little boats were making their way through water, or as if innumerable little fairies were bathing themselves, only every instant it came nearer and nearer, till at last, on every side of the boat in which the children were still standing, came creeping up from below lots and lots and _lots_ of small, bright green frogs, who clambered over the sides and arranged themselves in lines along the edges in the most methodical and orderly manner.
Jeanne gave a scream of horror, and darted across the boat to where Hugh was standing.
"O Cheri," she cried, "why did you whistle?
It's all that naughty Dudu.
He's going to turn us into frogs too, I do believe, because he thinks I laughed at him.

Oh dear, oh dear, what shall we do ?" Cheri himself, though not quite so frightened as Jeanne, was not much pleased with the result of his summons to the raven.
"It does look like a shabby trick," he said; "but still I do not think the creatures mean to do us any harm.

And I don't feel myself being turned into a frog yet; do you, Jeanne ?" "I don't know," said Jeanne, a very little comforted; "I don't know what it would feel like to be turned into a frog; I've always been a little girl, and so I can't tell.