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Captain Salt in Oz

<h2>CHAPTER 5 Patrippany Island</h2> "All hands on deck! Come on! Come on!" yelled Samuel Salt running past Ato's galley dragging on his clothes as he ran. "There's an island tuluward, you lubber." "Well, 'tain't a flying island is it?" Ato stuck a very red face out the door. "I guess it'll stay there till I turn the bacon, won't it? No cause to burn the biscuits just 'cause an island's sighted is there?" But in spite of his pretended indifference, the ship's cook shoved all his pans on the back of the stove and hurried out on deck. "Rich and jungly, this one," he observed, resting his arms comfortably on the rail, "and from what I can see a good place to grow bananas and whiskers. Look, Sammy, even the trees have beards." "Moss," muttered Samuel Salt striding over to the wheel. "Fly ashore Roger and see whether there's a good place to put in." Twittering with importance and curiosity, the Read Bird flung himself into the air. In ten minutes he was back to report a wide river cutting through the center of the island from end to end. The foliage was so dense, Roger had not been able to discover any signs of habitation, but after viewing the mouth of the river through his glasses, the Captain decided to take a chance, and sail through. "Now, Sammy, let's not do anything hasty," begged the ship's cook lifting his floury hands in warning, "nor try to conquer a country on an empty stomach. This may be an important island, so after we eat, let us put on our proper clothes and plant the Oz flags with dignity and decorum." "Spoken like a King and a seaman," approved Samuel Salt, "and if my eye does not deceive me, I'll have the ship in the river as soon as you have the coffee in the pot. Then we'll ride in with the tide, put on our discovering togs and proceed with the business of the day." So while Ato returned to his galley and the Read Bird to his post in the foremast, Samuel swung the Crescent Moon in toward the island. Each felt a slight twinge of uneasiness as the ship left the open sea and began to slip rapidly up the broad new and unnavigated jungle stream. Vine covered trees pressed close to the banks, and birds and monkeys in the branches kept up an incessant screech and chattering. A flock of greedy pelicans flopped comically after the ship and as they penetrated deeper and deeper into the jungle it almost seemed as if they were entering some dim green land of goblins. "A fine target we make for anyone who cares to shoot at us," moaned Ato, as he waddled backward and forward between the cabin and galley with cups and covered dishes. "Ugh!" "Yes, I wouldn't be surprised to feel an arrow in my back any minute now," assented Samuel Salt brightly, "though I must say I'd much prefer a fried mackerel in my stomach." "Come on then," shuddered Ato, in no wise cheered by Samuel's remarks, "breakfast's ready and we may as well eat before we die." "Now never say die!" roared the Royal Explorer of Oz, touching the buttons to furl sail and yelling to Roger to let go the anchor. "Never say die—say dee—dee-scovery is our aim and purpose, Mates. Dee-scovery with a hi de di dide di dough!" sang Samuel vociferously to keep up his own spirits. Finally with the ship motionless amidstream the three shipmates sat down to breakfast. Their nerves were tense and their ears cocked for signs of approaching natives, but except for the noise of the birds and monkeys and the occasional splash of some river creature, there was no sound to indicate the ship had been sighted by the islanders. <div class="image-center"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus32.jpg" width-obs="249" height-obs="350" alt=""/></div> "Nobody's home," concluded Samuel, finishing off his third cup of coffee at one toss and hurrying off to his cabin. Roger, having only Oz flags and no shore togs to bother him, generously offered to clear away the dishes and amused himself by throwing scraps and the rest of the biscuits to the pelicans. He had just tossed over the last biscuit when Ato appeared in a grand satin coat and breeches, long cape and three-cornered hat. The elegance of his apparel was somewhat marred by the bread board he had belted round his middle and the bread knife and blunderbuss he had stuck through his sash. "Ha, hah!" roared Samuel Salt, giving the bread board a resounding whack. "Something to stay your stomach, EH?" Samuel himself was as stylishly attired as the King, his three-cornered hat at a dashing angle. Under his arm he had two pairs of tremendously long stilts. "No need for us to get all grubby lowering the boat. We'll wade ashore this time," explained Samuel as Ato's eyes grew round and questioning. "Easy as walking on crutches; just watch me, Mate." Now Samuel, it must be confessed, had been practicing stilting on Elbow Island, so naturally it came easy to him. First he put his stilts over the side, then vaulting the rail, he seized the tops and settled his feet in the cross pieces at one jump and started walking calmly up and down gleefully calling for Ato to follow. It all looked so simple, Ato handed the basket of lunch he had packed to Roger, and seizing his stilts began anxiously feeling around for the river bottom. Satisfied that it was solid, he climbed boldly up on the rail. "That's it! That's it!" applauded Samuel. "Now grab the tops, Mate, and start coming." "Chee tree—tee—hee—!" screeched the monkeys derisively as Ato clung precariously to the rail with one hand and maneuvered his stilts with the other. By some miracle of balance the fat King actually managed to mount and hold on to his perilous walking sticks. Then with a long quivering breath he heaved one forward. He was about to take another step when a desperate scream from Roger almost caused him to topple over backwards. "'Gators!" croaked the Read Bird, beating his wings together violently. "Watch out for those 'gators." "Why bother him with gaiters at a time like this? They look perfectly all right to me." Samuel Salt frowned up at Roger. "Not his gaiters, river 'gators, alligators, CROCODILES!" wailed Roger, beginning to fly in agonized circles. "Crocodiles and WORSE." Samuel, eyeing what he had supposed to be a pile of rotten logs on the river bank, saw dozens of the slimy saurians slide into the water and come savagely toward them. "Back to the ship! Back to the ship!" babbled the Read Bird, clutching Ato's collar with a frantic claw. But the King was too frightened to move. The sight of the bleary-eyed river monsters made him tremble so violently his stilts twittered and swayed like trees in a hurricane. He could not for the life of him take a step in either direction. With a loud cry Samuel started to help him, but a crocodile reached Ato first. Its jaws closed with a vicious snap on the King's left stilt and with a heart-rending shriek Ato plunged into the slimy river. <div class="image-center"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus33.jpg" width-obs="500" height-obs="347" alt=""/></div> "There, there! Now you've done it!" sobbed Roger. "Fed the kindest soul who ever served a ship's company to a parcel of crocodiles!" Dropping the Oz flags and lunch basket, he made an unsuccessful grab for his Master's arm. But even if he had caught it, Ato's great weight would have pulled them both under, and now only a circle of bubbles showed where the luckless explorer had disappeared. Firing his blunderbuss to frighten off the rest of the crocodiles, Samuel, striking left and right with his stilts, propelled himself forward, while Roger pecked futilely at the monster that had felled his Master. But just as Samuel, after boldly driving off the dragon-like creature, prepared to dive in and save Ato or perish with him, a dripping head appeared above the water. <div class="image-center"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus34.jpg" width-obs="500" height-obs="294" alt=""/></div> "Thank you. Thank you very much!" murmured a mild voice. "I haven't had as nice a present as this since I was an itty bitty baby. Now what can I do for YOU?" Neither Samuel nor Roger could speak a word, for where the King had gone down, a tremendous hippopotamus was coming up, the lunch basket hanging carelessly out of a corner of its mouth. For a wild moment Samuel thought his enormous friend and shipmate had been transformed by some witchcraft into this ponderous beast. He even imagined he caught an expression of Ato's in the monster's moist eye. But this gloomy idea was soon dispelled, for, as the creature rose higher out of the water, they could see a desperate and bedraggled figure sprawled across its slippery back. "Ahoy, Mate!" choked Samuel, his heart thumping like a trip hammer. "Is it really you? Are you safe, then?" "Safe!" quavered the half-drowned and mud-covered King of the Octagon Isle. "SAFE?" He peered dizzily at the churning crocodiles just a boat's length away, and his voice cracked and broke. "I never felt safer in my life. What am I riding, a whale or an elephant?" "A river horse," explained the hippopotamus, looking kindly over her shoulder. Then, as the crocodiles began to hiss and roar and come rolling toward them, she gave a ferocious bellow and snort. "Away with you! Be off, you river scum!" she squealed viciously. "These travelers are MINE. Shoot your fire stick, Master Long Legs. That will fix them." For a moment the crocodiles held their post, then, as Samuel fired his gun repeatedly, they began to slide sullenly across the river to the opposite bank. "Hold fast, Master Short Legs, and I'll soon have you ashore," wheezed the hippopotamus, speaking out of the corner of her mouth so as not to drop the picnic basket. "Yes, yes, but what then?" shuddered Ato, trying to get a finger hold on the monster's slippery neck. "Why, then, we'll both tell our stories, and after that I'll eat," snorted the river horse, paddling joyously toward the bank. "You'll EAT!" groaned Ato, ready to roll back into the river. "Oh, my father and mother and maiden aunts!" "Did you hear that?" Dropping to Samuel's shoulder, Roger whispered fiercely. "Quick now, a shot behind the ear, before it gets any further. Are you going to do nothing while this ravenous monster carries off my poor Master?" "Sh-hh!" warned Samuel, holding up his finger. "These creatures do not eat meat or men. They're herbivorous, my lad, and this one seems uncommonly kind and friendly. But what puzzles me—" the Royal Explorer looked intently into the face of the Read Bird. "What puzzles me is to find this one talking our language. To my knowledge, only animals in Oz, a few in Ev and you on the Octagon Isle have the gift of speech. And I tell you, Mate, this is a valuable discovery, and a simply splendid specimen of a pachydermatous talking aquatic." Whether the last few words in this sentence or a stone in the river bottom tripped up the Captain, Roger never knew, but without any warning Samuel turned a sudden back somersault into the river, going under as completely as Ato had done. "Ugh—gr—ugh!" he gurgled, coming up full of mud and disgust. "How did that happen?" "Stilts!" sniffed Roger, whose wings had saved him from going down with Samuel. "A splendid way to get ashore, Master Salt, so neat and tidy. And a fine Discoverer you look now." Sighing deeply, Samuel watched his stilts floating out of reach, then shaking his head violently to get the water out of his eyes, he swam thoughtfully after the hippopotamus. As he dragged himself up on the bank, a monkey swinging by its tail from the lower branches of a tree snatched his three-cornered hat and scittered all the way to the tree top, at which all the other monkeys let out shrill hoots of mocking merriment. "Ah! The welcome committee!" sniffled Ato, rolling off the hippopotamus. "Well, Sammy, wherever it is, here we are and a nice mess you've made of the landing. Clothes ruined, weapons gone," (Ato felt his middle dejectedly for his bread knife and blunderbuss), then hitching up the bread board at his waist looked long and accusingly at the Leader of the Expedition. "Now you mustn't mind a little mud," said the hippopotamus, setting down the picnic basket and gazing from one to the other with frank interest and curiosity. "Mud is beautiful and SO healthy." "Not for me," frowned Samuel Salt, endeavoring to remove the thick green slime from his hair and ears with his damp silk handkerchief. "But I suppose we'll dry off in time and—" "Proceed with the business of the day," finished Ato sarcastically, as he squeezed the water out of his silk pantaloons and coat tails. "But I hope you don't mind my saying that a seaman should stick to his boats, Samuel. If I had not fallen in with this kind and obliging hippopotamus, I'd have been a crocodile's lunch by this time." "Oh, I'd have got you out somehow," muttered Samuel, smoothing back his hair sulkily. "And those stilts really saved your life. Suppose that animal had bitten your leg instead of your stilt? By the way, what's the name of this island, Mate?" Anxious to change the subject, Samuel turned to Ato's tremendous rescueress. "Mate?" repeated the hippopotamus, wiggling her ears inquiringly, "What may that mean?" "It is what a seaman calls his crew and his friends," explained Samuel, grinning in spite of himself. "Seaman? Mate?" mused the hippopotamus in a rapt voice. "How cozy, how beautiful!" Overcome with emotion, the mighty monster leaned forward and lapped up the picnic basket, Oz flags, lunch and everything. "I shall remember this as long as I live," she assured them with a gulp as one of the flags went sideways down her throat. "Nikobo, Little Daughter of the Biggenlittle River People, bids you welcome to Patrippany Island." "Little daughter!" exclaimed Ato in a smothered voice. "Ha, ha! Patrippany Island. Ho, ho! This is interesting. I knew there was a trip in it somewhere, a wet trip for us, eh, Samuel?" "But what I don't understand," said the Royal Explorer of Oz, briskly massaging his beard with his handkerchief, "is how you happen to speak our language. Do all the creatures on this Island talk? I don't mean that monkey chatter above." "No, none of the other creatures here speak the language of man," answered Nikobo solemnly. "I never knew I could speak it myself till five moons ago last Herb Day." "Herb Day? Dear, dear and dear! How confusing it all grows," sighed Ato, emptying the water out of his hat which had somehow survived his river ducking. "Do you suppose she means Thursday? Roger! ROGER! Keep away from those monkeys. Do you wish to lose all your tail feathers?" "Oh, it's all very simple," Nikobo rolled her eyes from side to side. "One day I eat herbs and that is Herb Day. One day I eat twigs and that is Twig Day, and one day I eat grass and that is Grass Day, and—" "And one day you eat lunch baskets and Oz flags, and I suppose that makes it Flag Day," chuckled Roger, coming down from a little excursion in the tree tops. "She's swallowed the Oz flags, Skipper, and if that doesn't make her a citizen of Oz, I'll eat my feathers." "Go ahead, if it will keep you any quieter," said Samuel Salt, who did not want this interesting conversation interrupted by Roger's nonsense. "So you only began to speak our language five moons ago last Herb Day? What made you do that?" "A boy," confided Nikobo with a ponderous wag of her head. "Ah, now we're getting somewhere." Feeling in his pocket, Samuel pulled out a small note book and pencil, still damp but usable. "Was it a native boy?" he asked eagerly. "No, no, certainly NOT." The hippopotamus panted a little at the very idea of such a thing. "The Leopard Men speak a strange roaring language I have never been able to make head or tail of. Besides, to speak to them would not be safe nor desirable. The Leopard Men have long tusks and spears and—" "Leopard Men!" yelled Ato, flinging both arms round the trunk of a tree. "Oh! Oh! and OH! I wish we were safely back at pirating, Sammy. Here we are marooned on this miserable monkey island, inhabited by Leopard Men, surrounded by crocodiles and no way of getting back to the ship." <div class="image-center"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus35.jpg" width-obs="419" height-obs="350" alt=""/></div> "You forget me," murmured the hippopotamus. Lumbering over to Ato, she gave him a gentle nudge with her moist pink snout. "Nikobo, Little Daughter of the Biggenlittle River People, will carry you anywhere you wish to go." <hr class="chap" /> <div class="image-center"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus36.jpg" width-obs="468" height-obs="350" alt=""/></div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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