"Fifty-three scarf-pins."
"Hooray!" shouted the pirate crew.
"A hundred and eighty-five sterling silver berry-spoons," next announced
the treasurer.
"Hooray!" cried the crew again.
"One thousand clocks!" cried the treasurer.
"How many with alarms?" asked an old pirate anxiously.
There was a strained silence. The treasurer consulted his list.
"Seven hundred and forty-nine," he answered.
"Hooray!" yelled the pirate crew.
When the list had been read (it took very nearly half an hour to do it)
the one-eyed captain cried, "Bring forth the Master Mariner!"
So the Master Mariner was brought forth, and thrown brutally against a
mast. The pirate chief put his arms akimbo, cleared his throat savagely,
and roared, "So you thought you were going to punish me, did you! Well,
I'll show you what happens to people who upset my plans. Here, Hawk Eye,
and you, Toby, throw this fellow overboard."
Hearing this awful order, the Princess screamed and would have run to
the Master Mariner, had not rude hands restrained her.
Splash! the Mariner fell into the inky sea. Swift as a bird, his own
ship went by him; he saw the mocking face of the pirate chief leering at
him from over the rail; in a few minutes he was alone, all, all alone in
the wide, wide sea. For some time he swam about, and by great good luck
discovered a log of wood strong enough to bear his weight, floating near
at hand. Upon this he climbed, and there we shall leave him for the
present.
When the Captain had disappeared from sight miles behind, the pirate
chief walked over to the Princess, and looking at her, said sneeringly,
"Well, my beauty, are you going to make up your mind to be the wife of
the King of the Oyster Mountains? I'm taking you to him, and mind now,
no fooling!"
The Princess shrank from him with horror, and as she fell back, the sun
gleamed on the silver fish she was wearing at her throat. The chief made
a rude snatch at it; the Princess, however, was quicker than he, and hit
him a good box on the ear.
"Ow!" cried the chief, dancing up and down with rage. "I'll fix you, you
ill-tempered minx. Here, somebody, tie this girl to the mast for the
rest of the day, and give her nothing but bread and water."
In obedience to his order, the Princess, with her arms tied by the
wrists behind her back, was lashed to the mast. When she had been
securely bound, the chief, whose ear was still tingling, took the silver
fish. He was looking at it when he saw something which made him drop the
fish on the deck.
Out of the forecastle door thick clouds of black mist were rolling,
exactly as if the hold of the ship were on fire. For a meddlesome pirate
had found the leather bag of storm-wind and had opened it, mistaking it
for a bag of wine.
The strange clouds, swirling round the deck, grew instant by instant
darker and denser. Soon the tops of the masts could no longer be
distinguished. The sun took on a horrible copper hue, and the sea became
a mottled black and green. A howling wind arose.
A moment later, with the violence of an explosion, the storm burst.
Mountain-high rose the glassy white-capped waves. The lightning fell in
violet cataracts, and thunder roared and tumbled through the caverns of
the sky. An ocean of hissing rain fell into the waters.
Suddenly the pirate chief, as he staggered down the stairs, shouted, "We
are lost!"
Just astern, an enormous, glassy wave, higher than the masts of the
ship, was about to break. The pirates yelled, but little good their
yelling did them. An instant later the wave broke upon the deck, and
crashing tons of green water swept every single pirate into the sea.
Slowly, and with the tense struggle of a wounded animal, the good ship
lifted itself from the waves.
The Princess was the only human being left on board. Only the cords
which bound her to the mast had saved her from being swept away.
Now, when the water swept the deck, the silver fish which lay at the
Princess's feet became alive and darted over the rail into the sea.
The storm continued. The helpless Princess expected every minute to sink
with the ship into the roaring waters. Suddenly, to her horror, a high
rocky island appeared a few miles ahead. Toward this island, over whose
cruel reefs the ocean was foaming and breaking, the ship was drifting
fast. Tied to the mast, the Princess listened to the terrible cry of the
breakers, and, spell-bound, watched the jagged rocks of the island ever
drawing nearer.
Now while the Princess was in this terrible situation, the Master
Mariner, who had been blown before the storm like a feather, also came
in sight of the rocky island. The instant he caught sight of the shore,
and heard the roaring of the breakers, he knew that he could not hope to
reach the land. He was on the edge of the reefs when the King of the
Caves of the Sea, who had been summoned by the silver fish, rose out of
the water beside him, and taking him in his webbed hands, swam with him
to a place of safety. Just as they reached the shallows, the mists of
the tempest parted, and driving through the darkness and the storm,
headed for the reefs, came the Master Mariner's ship with the Princess
tied to the mast.
"Oh, save her! Save the Princess!" cried the Master Mariner.
The King of the Caves of the Sea stretched out his hands over the island
and uttered a strange and mysterious word. So awful was its power that
the rocky cliffs split open, forming a safe and sheltered harbor. Into
this port came the ship, safe at last as a bird in its nest.
So the Master Mariner, the Princess, and the ship were all wonderfully
preserved, and when the storm was over, the King of the Caves saw them
home to Silk Land. There the Master Mariner found his crew waiting for
him, and in a few days they had rigged new sails for the ship which were
even whiter than the old. The inhabitants got back the fifty-three scarf
pins, the hundred and eighty-five sterling silver berry-spoons, the
thousand clocks, and the rest of the booty which the pirates had stowed
away in the Master Mariner's ship.
Great was the rejoicing.
Greater still was the joy, however, when the Master Mariner married the
Princess.