So they stroked it till it woke.

'We want to go somewhere abroad,' they said, 'and we can't make up our minds where.' 'Let the carpet make up ITS mind, if it has one,' said the Phoenix.
'Just say you wish to go abroad.' So they did; and the next moment the world seemed to spin upside down, and when it was right way up again and they were ungiddy enough to look about them, they were out of doors.
Out of doors--this is a feeble way to express where they were.

They were out of--out of the earth, or off it.

In fact, they were floating steadily, safely, splendidly, in the crisp clear air, with the pale bright blue of the sky above them, and far down below the pale bright sun-diamonded waves of the sea.

The carpet had stiffened itself somehow, so that it was square and firm like a raft, and it steered itself so beautifully and kept on its way so flat and fearless that no one was at all afraid of tumbling off.