L. Frank Baum - Oz 25

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by Pirates In Oz


  nah!”

  “Not bananas, old girl,” exulted the King, snatching off his apron and tightening his hold on the water bottle. “Not bananas, but milk, flour, eggs, potatoes and butter. I’d do anything for a civilized meal, mates. Come on!” Brandishing his water bottle, with his whiskers bristling dangerously, Ato looked as bad an old pirate as you could ever imagine, and Peter, with his scimitar in one hand and a blunderbuss in the other, looked as determined and dangerous a young one.

  CHAPTER 13

  The Castle Boat

  Now, whatever might be said of Samuel Salt as a pirate no one could question his skill as a navigator, and Peter

  with a little thrill of pride watched him bring the Crescent Moon alongside the enemy craft. His knees shook a little as

  the two boats swung together.

  “Once a boat surrenders there’s no fighting,” Peter told himself confidently. “But on the other hand, suppose it is a

  trick to bring them closer. Ginger! What a funny boat.”

  “It’s a floating castle,” breathed Ato, in a hushed voice, and that more nearly described it than anything I could tell you. A goodly sized gray stone castle with turrets, towers and battlements rose from the deck. A high stone wall ran round the castle and Peter’s shot had torn a gaping hole in one side of it. The deck itself was sodded and covered with grass, trees, arbors and flower beds. In truth it was a veritable garden. As the pirates in some puzzlement stared upward, a drawbridge rattled down from the stately entrance and rested on the top rail of the Crescent Moon.

  “Well, lad, why don’t you go aboard? She’s your prize. You did all the conquering. Go on over and take charge.” Samuel Salt gave Peter a little push and squinted uneasily up at the strange stately castle boat.

  “Not alone!” gasped Peter, beginning to feel rather faint and frightened. “Supposing they start something?”

  “Take the bananny goat,” chuckled Roger, from his perch on Ato’s shoulder. “She’ll sink any ship if you just give her time.”

  “I’m going with you,” declared the King sturdily. “I’ll bet there’s potatoes aboard that craft, potatoes, meat and pie. I’m hungry, hungry enough to fight for ‘em! Come on, mates! The white flag’s still flying from the mizzen tower!” Climbing with surprising dexterity over the rail, Ato started over the drawbridge closely followed by Peter and Samuel Salt who really had no intention of staying behind. As they tramped resolutely and grimly forward, a tall, elegantly attired personage wearing a ducal crown appeared in the castle doorway. He surveyed the pirates with bored annoyance through his monocle and impatiently motioned for them to hurry.

  “Now then, my fine fellow,” thought Peter grimly, “just make one pass at us and it will be the worse for you.” But the nobleman had, it seemed, no intention of resisting his captors.

  “I,” he announced grandly, as the pirates, a little out of breath, came abreast of him, “I am

  Godorkas, Duke of Dork, and this is my private castle boat. You will find the jewels and gold in the morning room on the right. Take what you wish and be quick about it, and quiet, too. This shooting gives me a headache and any confusion upsets my digestion. You have left the rest of your mates on your boat, I take it?”

  “A hundred of em, Duke,” shouted the Read Bird, as Samuel opened his mouth to say there were no other men aboard the Crescent Moon. “And show us the way to the pantry, fellow, to the kitchens, the larder and store rooms. We crave food!”

  “Bhookus, show these-ah-gentlemen to the kitchen” directed the Duke, turning to a frightened looking dignitary at his side, “and kindly notify me when they have left and what.” Casting a withering glance at Roger, Godorkas strode swiftly into a small anteroom and slammed the door.

  “Ha, ha, ha!” roared the Read Bird. “This is grand. Lead on, Bhookus, and do what the Duke commands or I’ll peck off your ear.”

  “This doesn’t seem right,” sighed Samuel Salt, striding reluctantly after their guide, who was fleeing like a frightened rabbit along the passage.

  “We need potatoes and you know it!” puffed Ato belligerently. “Don’t be a goozlebug, Sammy. Why, they’re lucky to get off with their lives. Mmm-mm -hurry! I smell roast beef.” The servants and retainers of the Duke had locked themselves in the upper rooms of the boat and they peered down with pale seared faces as the pirates entered the castle.

  Peter, not as interested in food as Ato, tuned off to the right and now stood in the center of the vast and gorgeously appointed morning room of the Duke of Dork. It was as richly and regally furnished as some of the throne rooms Peter had seen in the palaces of Oz, and true to his word, Godorkas had heaped all the jewels and gold on a pearl topped able.

  “I don’t believe I’ll take any of these,” decided Peter, who, when it came right down to sword points, was almost as poor a pirate as Samuel. “We have plenty of pearls and the old boy may need these himself.” So Peter merely tiptoed around the lower rooms of the castle looking with great interest and curiosity at the treasures of its owner. The castle boat was in no way like a ship except that its tables and chairs and other furniture were fastened to the floor to keep them steady in rough weather. Peter, noting the lack of sails and rigging, funnels or engines, decided must run by some new and electric process. He had about decided to join the others in the kitchen when a curious red cupboard caught his eye. Something alive was certainly inside and it was banging and pushing against the doors so hard that they creaked and bulged and threatened to burst open at any moment Undecided, Peter stared at the cabinet and then, his curiosity getting the better of his caution he turned the key in the door and quickly jumped backward. But not quickly enough, for out with a furious squeal shot a plump pink pig, knocking Peter head over heels. Then, flying up on a table, it regarded him with bland interest and curiosity.

  “It has wings!” gulped Peter, sifting up and rubbing the back of his head. “Wings!”

  “Of course I have wings,” answered the pig tartly, and spreading them wide it sailed gracefully down to the floor. “You don’t look much like a pirate” observed the pig conversationally.

  “Well, you don’t look much like a pig,” stated Peter argumentatively. “Why, I never heard of a flying pig. I’ve read about Pegasus, but he was a flying horse. Whoever could catch and ride him was a poet.”

  “Same here,” grunted the pig, waddling sociably over to Peter. “Whoever rides me is a poet and my name is Pigasus. Good gracious, did you never hear of me? Well, get aboard Master Pirate, and see what happens. I’m rather glad you captured me. This Duke is an old bore and has never ridden me yet, though he’s fond of me, I dare say, for he shut me up In that cupboard so you pirates wouldn’t get me. I was a present from the Red Jim,,” he grunted self consciously.

  “I’ve heard of him,” admitted Peter, with an interested sniff. Now here, he decided, was something worth taking, and throwing his leg across the pig’s ,broad back and holding fast to its jeweled collar he calmly waited for developments. With a pleased snort Pigasus soared through an open window and flew so swiftly round and round the castle boat that Peter was soon almost too dizzy to see.

  ‘Stop! Stop it! Do you hear me? Whoa! Or go some place I want to go!’

  gasped Peter, much to his own surprise and the pig’s amusement. He had merely meant to say “Stop,” but found it impossible to speak without making verses.

  ‘Stop or I’ll clop thee on the spine. Haste to the castle kitchen, swine,’

  cried Peter in the next breath, and all the Duke’s retainers, popping their heads out of the upper windows, shouted and roared with merriment.

  ‘Well, why didn’t you say kitchen in the first place?” chuckled Pigasus looking mischievously back at Peter. “Here goes!” Swooping in through a window and bumping Peter’s head severely as he did so, Pigasus coasted cleverly down to the floor and Peter full of embarrassment and indignation, rolled off. Ato and Roger, briskly filling baskets and hampers with toothsome supplies from the Duke’s p
antry, looked up in astonishment.

  “Where have you been, and what’s this?” demanded the King, staring in some alarm at the pig, who was still flapping his wings and snorting gently.

  “You don’t mean to tell me you’ve been riding that pig?” shrieked Roger, dropping a can of baking powder. “What right has a low beast like that to wings, and what’s it doing on a boat?”

  “He’ll make splendid sandwiches,” murmured Ato, tapping the pig’s pink sides approvingly, “and go well with the eggs. Ham on the wing; well, well and well!”

  “Oh, no, he’s not that kind of pig,” explained Peter hastily, for Pigasus looked so startled and

  hurt at the King’s speech that the boy felt positively sorry for him. “I’m the only egg he’ll go with,”

  he went on cheerfully. ‘He’s a poetry pig, Ato. Gosh, all you have to do is ride on his back and you can talk in verse.”

  “I don’t believe it,” said Roger, blinking his round eyes stubbornly.

  “All right, try it yourself,” invited the boy, winking merrily at Pigasus. And Roger, who was really consumed with curiosity flopped down on the pigs back.

  “I’m conceited and quite awful, Speaking jawful after jawful Of nonsense no one cares to hear. Hard on the eye, worse on the ear,”

  chattered Roger and promptly flew off the pig’s back with a furious screech of anger while Ato and Peter fairly rocked with merriment.

  ‘Why, he’s better than a story book,” puffed the King, delightedly leaning down to pat Pigasus. “I take back what I said about the sandwiches,”

  “Oh, that’s quite all right” wheezed the pig good naturedly. “First you’d have to catch me, you know. Besides, I belong to this young pirate.” And Pigasus leaned affectionately against Peter, who could not help feeling rather proud at such devotion.

  “Maybe you’ll help us move these supplies over to the Crescent Moon,” suggested the King, with an appreciative glance at the pig’s strong wings. “We’ve taken enough to last us the balance of the voyage, Pete. Butter, eggs, sugar, flour, canned stuff, meat, fruit vegetables-everything!” Ato beamed, wiping his face on his sleeve. “But we’d better move on before the Duke finds there are only four of us. Where’s Sammy?”

  “I don’t know,” acknowledged Peter, climbing back on Pigasus, for he wanted to try making verses again.

  Hand up the beans, the prunes, the pie! For we, like time, can fly, can fly!”

  he found himself announcing.

  “Ho, ho!” applauded Ato, handing Peter two baskets and a box. “I could listen to you all day, but go along for time presses.”

  “A1ong we go to the Crescent Moon, To return again, anon and soon,”

  chortled the boy and off whisked the flying pig followed by the Read Bird, who had a basket in each claw and by Ato and Bhookas bent double under heavy hampers. In two trips they had carried the stuff to the galley of the pirate ship, still leaving the Duke a goodly supply for himself. Now rather anxiously they began to look around for the pirate. Roger still sulkily avoided Peter and Pigasus, but Ato was in the best of humor.

  “Whatever’s keeping Sammy?” muttered the King, as they crossed the drawbridge for the last time. “I wish he’d hurry. I want to try my hand at a custard and a meat pie.

  “I’ll find him,” offered Peter, and hopping back on Pigasus he flew in the window of the room to which the Duke of Dork had retired, for Peter suspected the owner of the castle boat of some treachery. What he saw was surprising enough. The pirate and the Duke sat in earnest conversation at a little table, a box of oddly shaped stones and sea shells between then,. In a corner of the room, Breakfast nibbled daintily at a box of breakfast food and her half of the apartment was rapidly filling with bananas.

  “Well?” inquired Peter, tumbling quickly off the pig’s back.

  “Well?” observed the Duke, looking up dreamily. Captain Salt and I have spent a most enjoyable morning. It seems he is an authority on conchology and in a small way I, too, am a collector of

  shells.”

  “Bah-hh” bleated Breakfast, casting startled eyes at the winged pig, who was in his way as Curious as she was in hers.

  “And the Duke here is uncommonly fond of bananas, which he finds it difficult to procure at sea, so I’ve given him our goat to pay for the things Ato has taken,” explained Samuel, with an apologetic wave at Breakfast.

  ‘How do you do, Duke?” grunted Pigasus at this point, and Godorkas, lifting his monocle, surveyed his property with some surprise.

  “I see you have my pig, he murmured finally. “Well, well take him along. He’s too fat and noisy for comfort and I never did care for 1ow verse.”

  “Oh, thanks! Thanks very much” Forgetting he had meant to take Pigasus anyway, Peter rushed forward and shook the Duke warmly by the hand.

  “I’ll drop by your island some day and we’ll have another talk,’ promised Samuel, getting reluctantly to his feet and casting a curious and anxious glance at Peter’s new pet. “I’ve enjoyed this immensely.”

  “Please do!” Rising Godorkas bowed stiffly three times. “I had no idea pirates were so

  agreeable”

  “Neither had I, whispered Peter in the pig’s ear. “Goodbye, Breakfast. Don’t let her sink your boat,” he added warningly, as he climbed back on his strange steed.

  She’ll swamp the boat. Oh, I should think so!

  Bananas make a vessel sink so— easily,” caroled Peter gaily. Covering his ears the Duke motioned for them to hurry. So, spreading his wings joyfully Pigasus started f or the Crescent Moon, Samuel Salt striding close behind muttering happily to himself about the habits and habitat of salt water crustaceans. The last Peter saw of the Duke he was walking rapidly up and down the grassy deck of his curious ship. He had a banana in each hand and between bites was calling out calm orders to his men And in an astonishingly short tune, the drawbridge with a rattle and clank swung back in place and the castle boat, drawing away from the Crescent Moon, swept majestically out toward the skyline.

  CHAPTER 14

  Snow Island

  I’LL bet there’s not a ship on any sea anywhere with as strange a crew as this,” thought Peter drowsily. He was Reclining comfortably on a pile of sacks, his hands clasped behind his head, lazily watching Roger and Pigasus fly races around the masts. Roger had made up with the pink pig and the two were now quite friendly, but how anyone could fly after the dinner Ato had cooked for them at noon, Peter could not imagine. “Boy, that meat pie.” Patting his middle tenderly, Peter rose and strolled over to talk to the pirate.

  “Well, mate,” smiled Samuel Salt, “that was a lucky shot you took at the castle boat. Provisioned as we now are, we can sail round indefinitely. We’re well rid of that bananny goat too, but I don’t care much for your pig.”

  “You don’t understand Pigasus,” chuckled Peter tolerantly. “He’s a good sort and lots of fun. You ought to ride him, Skipper, and see what you’d say.”

  “I’d rather know what I’m going to say before I say it,” observed Samuel, blinking dubiously up at Pigasus, who had come to rest on the cross piece of the mizzen mast. “Are you going to take him back to America with you?”

  “Gosh, I’d like to,” sighed the boy regretfully. “But all the animals I’ve met in Oz and other places never want to try a new country.”

  “Can’t blame them,” yawned Samuel, who like Peter had eaten an enormous dinner and felt very drowsy. “I wouldn’t trade this ship or ocean for all the treasure in Christendom. By the way, that Duke was a strange old boy, wasn’t he? Loved soft living and comfort and yet he craved the sea, too, so he fixed himself up this castle boat and enjoys both at the same time. I must stop by at the Isle of Dork some day and have another talk with him.”

  “In my country we have yachts for people like that,” announced Peter impressively. “But of course a castle boat is much sportier.”

  “Sportier?” mused Samuel Salt with a puzzled frown. “Well I don’t know about that, b
ut I wonder how she handles in a wind and what makes her go.

  “Search me.” Stuffing his hands in his pockets, Peter leaned luxuriously back against the rail, sniffing the keen salt air and looking fondly up at the snapping white sails overhead. “I like our kind of ship better, don’t you, Skipper? She’s more alive.”

  “Shiver my liver, yes!” beamed the pirate, bringing his hand down with a thump. “And she’s yours for awhile, Pete. Four bells and your go at the wheel. Keep her headed into the wind, will you, while I go and compliment the cook?” With a grin that ended in a tremendous yawn, Samuel Salt disappeared in the direction of the galley and Peter, left to himself, fell to thinking of Samuel’s men and wondering what mischief the pirates were up to and how many ships they had taken.

  “Man! When we run into them there’ll be real fighting,” prophesied Peter thoughtfully to himself. “Well, I can fire off the guns and we’ll keep Samuel mad till we capture them. If the worst comes to the worst I can fly up on Pigasus and drop weights on their heads. Roger can help at that and Ato’s good most anyway you take him.” Peter grew so interested and enthusiastic over a possible battle with the pirates that he almost wished the Sea Lion would swing into view. But as we already know, the Sea Lion was far from the Crescent Moon, and not a sail showed on the sky line. The wind, however, was growing colder and presently Peter was annoyed to see the jagged top of an iceberg looming up ahead. Roger and Pigasus had finally tired of flying. Pigasus snored peacefully beside the wheel and Roger from his high perch in the foremast called out sleepy remarks about the wind and weather.

 

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