"That promontory there on the weather bow," he began again after a few
moments' silence, "that is Barataria, which was long supposed to be an
island by its former governor, Don Sancho Panza, but which is now known
by all to be connected with the mainland. Pleasant pastures slope down
to the water, and if we were closer in shore you might chance to see
Rozinante, the famous charger of Don Quixote de la Mancha, grazing
amicably with the horse that brought the good news from Ghent to Aix."
"I wish I could see them!" I cried, enthusiastically; "but there is
another horse I would rather behold than any--the winged steed
Pegasus."
Before responding, my guide raised his hand and shaded his eyes and
scanned the horizon.
"No," he said at last. "I cannot descry any this afternoon. Sometimes
in these latitudes I have seen a dozen hippogriffs circling about the
ship, and I should like to have shown them to you. Perhaps they are all
in the paddock at the stock-farm, where Apollo is now mating them with
night-mares in the hope of improving the breed from which he selects
the coursers that draw the chariot of the sun. They say that the
experiment would have more chance of success if it were easier to find
the night-mares' nests."
"It was not a hippogriff I desired to see especially," I returned when
he paused, "although that would be interesting, no doubt. It was the
renowned Pegasus himself."
"Pegasus is much like the other hippogriffs," he retorted, "although
perhaps he has a little better record than any of them. But they say he
has not won a single aerial handicap since that American professor of
yours harnessed him to a one-hoss shay. That seemed to break his
spirit, somehow; and I'm told he would shy now even at a broomstick
train."
"Even if he is out of condition," I declared, "Pegasus is still the
steed I desire to see above all."
"I haven't set eyes on him for weeks," was the answer, "so he is
probably moulting; this is the time of year. He has a roomy boxstall in
the new Augean stable at the foot of Mount Parnassus. You know they
have turned the spring of Castaly so that it flows through the
stable-yard now, and so it is easy enough to keep the place clean."
"If I may not see Pegasus," I asked, "is there any chance of my being
taken to the Castle of the Sleeping Beauty?"
"I have never seen it myself," he replied, "and so I cannot show it to
you. Rarely indeed may I leave the deck of my ship to go ashore; and
this castle that you ask about is very far inland. I am told that it is
in a country which the French travellers call _La Scribie_, a curious
land, wherein the scene is laid of many a play, because its laws and
its customs are exactly what every playwright has need of; but no poet
has visited it for many years. Yet the Grand Duchess of Gerolstein,
whose domains lie partly within the boundaries of Scribia, is still a
subscriber to the _Gazette de Hollande_--the only newspaper I take
himself, by the way."
This last remark of the Captain's explained how it was that he had
been able to keep up with the news of the day, despite his constant
wanderings over the waste of waters; and what more natural in fact than
that the Flying Dutchman should be a regular reader of the _Holland
Gazette_?
Vanderdecken went forward into the prow of the vessel, calling to me to
follow.
"Do you see those peaks afar in the distance?" he asked, pointing over
the starboard bow.