THE KING'S HOUNDS
The boat started so suddenly that the Crew, stooping to peep through
the wheel, was taken by surprise and lost his balance. Down he sat upon
the deck, his heels went up into the air, and he would certainly have
gone over backwards into the water had it not been for Frances, who,
very quickly and very cleverly hooked the handle of her parasol in one
leg of his trousers and tilted him back to a sitting position.
"Thank you, Miss," said the Crew, touching his cap.
"Very much obliged," remarked the Admiral. "It might have spoilt his
complexion to have fallen into the water."
"You are very welcome," said Frances, cordially. "But why did the boat
start so suddenly? What made it start?"
"I did," replied the Admiral.
"You did? How?"
"I'll show you," said the Admiral, evidently much pleased by the
interest the little girls took in the working of the yacht. "Look!"
He was seated in the front end of the boat in one of those whirligig
office chairs which grow taller and taller if you wind them one way
and shorter and shorter if you wind them the other. When he said,
"Look," he gave a kick off with his left foot, round spun the chair and
stopped. Immediately the boat began to slow down.
"See?" asked the Admiral.
"Yes, I see," replied Margaret, who happened to be the one to catch his
eye. "I see, but I don't understand. The boat has no sail and it has no
oars and it has no engine: what is the--the--?"
"What makes it go?" asked Frances.
"What is the motive power, you were going to say, weren't you?" asked
the Admiral. "Ha, ha!" he cried, rubbing his hands. "You'd never guess.
Never. Look here!" jumping out of his chair and patting the cushion--a
very fat air-cushion blown up extremely tight. "This contains the
motive power. All you have to do is to sit on the cushion, give a twist
to the chair, and away you go."
"I see," said Margaret again. "Very simple. But what is the motive
power? Gasoline?"
[Illustration: _His heels went up in the air_]
"Oh, dear, no!" cried the Admiral, holding up his hands as though
horrified at the suggestion. "Nothing so barbarous as gasoline.
Unpleasant smells and unnecessary noises are not allowed on the
floating Islands. The cushion is filled with snap-dragon's breath."
"Snap-dragon's breath!" cried both little girls, sitting up very
straight and opening their eyes very widely.
"Yes; the King's pet snap-dragon. He blows up the cushion for us every
morning."
"So there _is_ a dragon on the island, then, is there?"
"Lobsterneck, the Great American Snap-Dragon," replied the Admiral,
proudly, making himself as tall as he possibly could and puffing out
his cheeks so tightly that his whiskers stood on end.
So Daddy was right, and there _was_ a dragon after all! Margaret and
Frances could not help feeling just a little bit uneasy at the thought,
for though they felt sure the dragon would be a tame one, still, a
dragon was a dragon--there was no getting over that fact.
But the Admiral, seeing them look so serious, hastened to relieve their
minds.
"Your Royal Hi--Your Ladyships, I mean," he corrected himself, "need
not be in the least alarmed: the King's dragon is not at all like the
common, low-class dragons you are accustomed to."
"But we aren't--" Margaret began, when the Admiral stopped her with a
polite wave of his hand.
"I know," said he. "I quite understand. You were going to say you are
not accustomed to associate with dragons at all. Very natural. The
average dragon, I am aware, is a rude and boisterous creature. But
Lobsterneck! Well, Lobsterneck is _not_ an average dragon. In the first
place he is a snap-dragon; and in the second place he is the most
amiable and considerate snap-dragon you ever met. He lives by himself
in a round tower on the top of Dragon hill, and he never thinks of
taking a walk without first putting boxing gloves on all six of his
claws for fear he should accidentally step on somebody and scratch
their paint off. And then he is such friends with the children! As soon
as he appears they all run and scramble upon his back. You'll see a
dozen of them perched up there at once sometimes, all in a row, like
swallows on a telegraph wire, and a dozen more running behind, begging
for a ride."
"What a nice dragon!" exclaimed Margaret. "And is he polite to
strangers?"
"Always," replied the Admiral.
"And--and to puppies?" asked Frances, leaning forward to stroke
Periwinkle's head.
"Always," replied the Admiral once more.
"Well, then," said Frances, "let us start at once. We should be so
sorry if we were late; and we are not at all afraid of the dragon any
more, are we, Margaret?"
"Not the least," replied her sister. "So, let's start again at once."
"Very good," said the Admiral; and with that he jumped into his chair
again and gave a push off with his right foot. Round spun the chair
with the Admiral in it, and away went the boat, skipping over the tops
of the waves, as a boy can make a flat stone skip across a pond--and a
girl can't.
"How beautifully it goes!" cried Margaret. "It's almost like flying.
What is the boat's name? Has it any name?"
"Certainly," replied the Admiral. "The name is painted on the bows. You
can see it yourself through the glass."
"Oh, yes! So I can! I wonder if I can read it. 'M, A,--' Why! The
letters are all turned the wrong way! What is that for?"
"That is because they are painted on the other side of the glass. You
are looking at the backs of the letters. Begin at the other end, and
then you will see."
"'T, H, E,' The," began Margaret. "'P, L, E, A,--' It's too hard for
me. What _does_ it spell?"
"'The Pleasant Dream'," replied the Admiral. "Good name, isn't it?"
"Very good," Margaret agreed. "Because it _is_ almost like a boat in a
dream, the way it skips from one wave to the next."
In fact, the boat went so fast and made such a breeze that Margaret
could not keep her hat on. She therefore placed it in her lap and tied
her handkerchief over her head instead. As she cocked her chin sideways
to tie the knot, she happened to catch sight of the Crew out of the
corner of her eye. To her surprise he was sitting cross-legged on the
deck behind the wheel, a little looking-glass in his hand and the
medicine chest before him, busily repairing the dent in his nose with
some putty.
"Why don't you--?" she began; but remembering that it was against the
rules of the navy to speak to the man at the wheel, she turned to the
Admiral instead, and said:
"Why doesn't he attend to the steering?"
"He's busy just now," replied the Admiral, "but he will directly. And,
anyhow," he added, "it doesn't make much difference: there isn't any
rudder."
"No rudder!" cried Margaret in astonishment; for she had always
understood that the rudder was the most important part of a ship.
"No. But that is not of the least consequence: I know the way."
The children did not know very much about boats, but it certainly did
seem a queer way of managing things. Nevertheless, though the Admiral,
riding backwards, never turned his head to see which way they were
going, and though the Crew, having puttied up the dent in his nose,
was now so busy with a paint-brush, painting the patch to match the
rest of his complexion, that he never looked up, The Pleasant Dream
continued on its course as straight as an arrow, skimming the waves
like a seagull. So the children, concluding it was all right, settled
themselves comfortably on their cushions, prepared to enjoy their
outing.
If the boat seemed to fly, so did the time. Neither of the children
owned a watch, so they could not tell how long they had been going, but
it seemed to them not more than ten minutes ere the Floating Island
began to loom up big before them. It was a peculiar-looking island--a
very peculiar-looking island. At first sight it looked like an
enormous, square, frosted sponge-cake floating on the water, its sides
as high as a house and as straight up-and-down as a wall. Then, as they
drew nearer, it appeared to the children to be like an immense block of
sea-foam with as many colors in it as a soap-bubble. It was not till
they had come pretty close to it that they made out at last what it
really was:--a thick and solid bank of cloud, all pink and white and
shining.
They had come within little more than a quarter of a mile of it, when
the cloud-wall suddenly split in two from top to bottom--only for one
second, for the narrow crack closed up again directly. But in that
brief time the children caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a most
beautiful floating flower-garden.
"Just as if a bit of a rainbow had tumbled into the sea," was Frances'
comment.
But they caught sight of something else as well; something far more
curious than any flower-garden.
In the middle of the island was a rather high hill; on top of the
hill was a fat round tower; and on top of the tower, seated on a
three-legged stool, combing his whiskers with his claws, sat some huge,
strange creature, unlike anything they had ever seen before.
"What's that?" whispered Frances; for the Admiral was dozing and she
did not want to disturb him.
Before Margaret could reply, the creature, whatever it was, caught
sight of them, when, just as the crack in the cloud-wall closed up
again, it rose up on its hind feet, and putting its fore-paws to its
mouth it bellowed like a cow.
"The whistling buoy!" cried Margaret. "I've heard it before."
"Excuse me, Miss," whispered a voice behind them; and looking back,
they saw that the Crew was peeping at them over the top of the wheel.
"Excuse me, Ladies," said he, "but you are mistaken. That was the
King's dragon."
"The King's dragon!"
"Yes, Miss: the King's pet snap-dragon. He sits up there on his tower
to keep watch, and when he sees anyone coming he bellows like that to
give notice."
"Are you sure?" asked Margaret.
"Oh, yes, Miss. Quite sure."
"Well," said Margaret, "I'm very glad to know that. I've often heard
the sound from the shore, and somebody told me it was the whistling
buoy. Now I shall know next time. There he goes again!"
At this second bellow the Admiral woke up with a start. He cast a
glance over his shoulder, and seeing how near they had come, he spun
his chair round till it would go no further, when the boat immediately
began to slacken speed.
It was still going pretty fast, however, and the cloud-wall looked so
solid that Margaret and Frances could not help feeling just a little
bit anxious lest the glass boat should be cracked when it ran against
it; which it was evidently going to do, for it kept straight on its
course.
But as the Admiral and the Crew were perfectly calm about it, they felt
reassured, and presently the frail boat ran into the wall without a
shock or a tremor. It just made a hole which closed up behind it--and
there they were, unable to see out in any direction.
At the same moment there arose all round them, in front and behind and
on both sides, a perfect clamor of barking, as though a hundred dogs
were all barking at once and all trying to see which could bark the
loudest and the fastest.
"Why! Where are they all?" cried Margaret, looking vainly about in
every direction. "It sounds as though they were in the water."
"They are," replied the Admiral, smiling at her wonder. "They always
bark like this when they hear the dragon bellow."
"But I don't understand," said Margaret. "Dogs don't live in the sea."
"These dogs do."
"Why! What kind of dogs are they?"
"They are sea-dogs," replied the Admiral. "The King's own pack of
hounds. The Royal Dog-fish."
"Oh!" cried Frances, laughing. "I see. So they are fish after all, and
not dogs."
"But," remarked Margaret, "if they are fish, how can they bark? I never
heard of fishes barking; not even dog-fishes."
"They don't as a rule," replied the Admiral; "but these have been
trained for the purpose. Just as soon as ever they cut their first
teeth their diet is most carefully regulated with the special object of
cultivating their voices."
"What are they fed on, then?" asked Margaret. "Dog biscuit?"
"No. Bark," replied the Admiral. "The bark of the dog-wood."
"Oh! Of course!" cried both the children. "We might have guessed that."
At this moment the boat ran through the cloud-wall and now the children
could see what sort of a place the Floating Island really was.