Flung flat upon their faces by the terrific shock, it was some time
before either Ruggedo or Peter had the courage to look up. Then Peter,
rubbing the sand and dust from his eyes, raised his head and stared
fearfully out to sea. What he saw made him blink with astonishment. The
sea had turned itself upside down and on top of the waves, and almost
touching Ruggedo’s island, lay a long gleaming stretch of sea bottom.
Crystal caverns and sea grottos, coral walls and castles glittered and
shimmered in the last rays of the setting sun and, rushing toward the
edges of the strange morass was every sort of sea creature Peter ever
had imagined. Giant fish wallowed desperately toward the sides and
hurled themselves back into the water. Peter rubbed his eyes again to
be sure he was not dreaming and, as a golden haired mermaid plunged
boldly from the window of a coral castle, he made a grab for Ruggedo.
But Ruggedo was already on his crooked little legs.
“Come on! Come on!” wheezed the old Gnome King frantically. “Can’t you
see it’s a way off the island?”
In a daze, Peter ran after him and jumped across the small stretch
of water separating their island from the mysterious sea country. It
extended as far ahead as they could see.
“Hurry! Hurry!” urged Ruggedo, stumbling over slippery rocks and
pausing every few moments to disentangle himself from the oozy arms of
some clutching sea plant. “It may go straight to the shores of Ev!”
panted the gnome, giving no attention to the frightful sea monsters who
were rushing past him in an effort to fling themselves back into the
water. “Come on! Come on!”
Shuddering a little, as he collided with an octopus, Peter came. Now
they were wading knee deep in green slime, with lobsters, crabs,
turtles, jiggers and jelly fish squirming and wiggling uncomfortably
against their legs.
Peter wanted to stop at the first coral castle, but Ruggedo ran
scornfully past. An old Merman, sitting sadly on the top step, reminded
Peter of his grandfather. He wanted to stop and sympathize with the old
gentleman, but fearing to be left alone in so scaresome and strange a
country, he hurried after the Gnome King. Then Peter saw that which
made all else fade from his mind. It was the battered hulk of an old
ship, resting against the side of a green sea cavern. It was overgrown
with sea moss and barnacles, but the name, in raised letters of pure
gold, was still visible.
“Blunderoo!” breathed Peter softly. Then snatching at Ruggedo’s
coat-tails forced him to stop.
“Let’s go aboard!” puffed Peter. “I’ll bet we’ll find all sorts of
useful things. Oh Jimminee! Look! It’s a pirate ship!”
Peter pointed to the gold skull and cross bones below the ship’s name,
his voice trembling with eagerness. Even Ruggedo’s eyes began to snap
and sparkle with excitement.
“That would mean treasure chests,” muttered the old gnome greedily.
There was a rusty chain ladder hanging over the ship’s side and,
seizing the lowest rung, Peter swung himself up and in less than no
time had reached the ship’s deck. How long it had lain at the bottom
of the sea was hard to say, but the planks were water soaked and rotten
and everything was crumbling with rust and decay. As the Gnome King
dropped down beside Peter, a thunderous explosion shook the boards
beneath their feet.
[Illustration]
“Another one!” roared Ruggedo, clapping his hands over his ears.
“Another what?” shouted Peter, who was not quite sure what had happened
in the first place.
“Sea quake!” quavered the gnome, cowering back against the ship’s
cabin. And Ruggedo was right. For a moment longer the strange stretch
of sea bed quivered on the surface of the waves. Then, with a splash,
grind and rumble, it went crashing back to the bottom and the hungry
waves of the Nonestic Ocean tossed and tumbled over the place where it
had been.
Now the same terrific shock that hurled the sea land back to the depths
of the ocean dislodged the crumbling old pirate wreck and hurled it
high into the air. With a shattering smack it smote the churning
waters, rocked violently backward and forward, finally righting itself.
“Well, I’ll be scuppered!” Letting go of the ring in the cabin door to
which he had clung during the whole excitement, Ruggedo slid down to
a sitting position on the deck. Peter, with one arm hooked about the
ship’s railing, was so surprised to find himself alive that he did not
speak for several moments.
“Well!” he coughed finally, “at least we have a boat!”
“If we hadn’t come aboard we’d have been at the bottom of the sea
by this time,” shuddered Ruggedo, as Peter sank down beside him. “I
believe you’ve brought me good luck, boy, and when I reach my kingdom
I’ll make you general of all my armies.”
“Thanks,” murmured Peter, smiling faintly, “but I’ll have to be getting
back to Philadelphia. My grandfather will be worried, besides I’m
captain of our baseball team and there’s a big game on soon.”
“Would you rather be captain of a baseball team than an army?” asked
Ruggedo, staring at the little boy in real amazement. He didn’t know
just what a baseball team was, but felt that it could not compare with
his army of gnomes.
“Of course,” answered Peter, in a matter of fact voice, “but if we’re
going to get anywhere we’ll have to steer the ship.” The sun had sunk
down into the sea by this time and it was growing darker and darker.
Stepping carefully along the rail, for the ship was still plunging and
pitching terribly, Peter made a careful survey. But the rudder was
gone, the masts crumbled to mere stumps and not a vestige of the sails
remained.
“We’ll have to drift,” called Peter resignedly. Scarcely hearing him,
the old gnome nodded. Already a hundred plans were skimming through
his wicked little head--plans to reinstate himself as Metal Monarch,
revenge himself upon Ozma and Dorothy and destroy once and for all the
Emerald City of Oz. The tides of the Nonestic Ocean were very strong,
and he felt that sooner or later they would be carried to the shores
of Ev, under the surface of which lay his own vast dominions. Directly
across the Deadly Desert from Ev, lay Oz, and when he reached his own
kingdom some means of crossing the desert would have to be devised.
While Ruggedo was planning all this, Peter was busily exploring the
ship. He would have liked to descend into the hold of the pirate
vessel, but it was already too dark to venture down, and as he was
very hungry, he began to look around for something to eat. Fortunately
the decks were still full of wiggling sea creatures that had failed
to get back in the water after the sea quake. Peter threw most of
them overboard, keeping only three tiny fish for his dinner. These
he killed, cleaned and scaled with his pocket knife and, borrowing
Ruggedo’s pipe which quite miraculously had stayed lit, kindled a small
fire in an iron pot and broiled them most satisfactorily.
[Illustration]
Ruggedo refused to share Peter’s dinner, crunching up instead a handful
of pebbles he had in his pocket. As the moon rose the sea grew calmer
and, riding up and down the silvered waves, the strange ship mates sat
conversing together. Delighted to be off the lonely island, impressed
by Peter’s enterprise and spirit, Ruggedo had grown almost friendly. He
listened quite pleasantly, while Peter told how the balloon bird had
carried him off and then in his turn related a bit of his own history.
He first explained to the little boy how Dorothy had captured his
magic belt, which seemed to be his most treasured possession, and how
she had given it to Ozma. Pulling away at his pipe, he spoke of his
many efforts to recover his property, but always, it seemed, through
no fault of his own, he had been defeated. After his last attempt he
related how Ozma had banished him to the lonely island where Peter had
found him.
[Illustration]
“Well, why bother with the belt?” asked Peter, a little sleepily, as
the gnome paused to knock the ashes from his pipe. “If you have all
the riches you say you have, and are ruler over five hundred thousand
gnomes, why do you need this belt?”
“Because it is my most magic possession,” explained Ruggedo
impatiently. “With the magic belt one can change people into any shape
or form whatsoever and transport them where one desires. And don’t you
see that so long as Ozma has this belt, I am in her power?”
[Illustration]
“I suppose so,” yawned Peter, but he couldn’t help reflecting, from
what he had read of Ozma and what he already knew of Ruggedo, that the
magic belt was far safer with the little fairy ruler of Oz.
“Why did Dorothy take it from you in the first place?” he inquired
drowsily.
“Just because I wanted to transform her and a few of those useless Oz
people into ornaments for my palace,” complained Ruggedo in a grieved
voice.
“Oh!” murmured Peter and, chuckling a little to himself, curled into
a more comfortable position. The deck was hard and wet, but Peter,
thinking over the strange events of the day, did not even notice. Up to
now, he had believed in the usual things of life, like grandfathers,
school, baseball, circuses, vacations in summer, plenty of friends and
fun. To suddenly be confronted by balloon birds, gnomes, fairy kingdoms
and sea quakes was terribly confusing. Peter tried his best to figure
it all out but, lulled by the motion of the ship and the monotonous
drone of Ruggedo’s voice, he finally fell into a deep slumber.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]