Every one of the poor fellows heartily wished he was back in Oogaboo caring for his orchard, and some were so unhappy that they began to reproach Ann for causing them all this trouble and danger.
Finally the Queen sat down on the bottom of the pit and leaned her back against the wall.

By good luck her sharp elbow touched a secret spring in the wall and a big flat rock swung inward.

Ann fell over backward, but the next instant she jumped up and cried to the others: "A passage! A passage! Follow me, my brave men, and we may yet escape." Then she began to crawl through the passage, which was as dark and dank as the pit, and the officers followed her in single file.

They crawled, and they crawled, and they kept on crawling, for the passage was not big enough to allow them to stand upright.

It turned this way and twisted that, sometimes like a corkscrew and sometimes zigzag, but seldom ran for long in a straight line.
"It will never end--never!" moaned the officers, who were rubbing all the skin off their knees on the rough rocks.
"It must end," retorted Ann courageously, "or it never would have been made.