But about midmorning Reb said, “Here comes another one. He's not moving very fast.”
They all watched from their hiding place as a wagon drawn by a single lean horse and driven by an old man approached the creek.
“Whoa,” the man said and stopped the horse just as its hooves were in the creek. The farmer—that seemed to be what he was—allowed the horse to drink.
The old man appeared to be half asleep, and Josh whispered, “Here's our chance. Get to the back of the wagon.”
They scooted out, making as little noise as possible.
The wagon bed was at least twenty feet over their heads, but Reb said, “Quick, climb the spokes—they're as good as stairsteps!” He climbed them quickly himself and then leaned over. “This is great! There's straw in here. We can hide.”
Josh helped Abbey up, then Sarah. He saw that the wagon was indeed filled with hay, on top of which were enormous melons.
When Wash was aboard, he thumped one and said, “Looks a little bit like a cantaloupe. Maybe we'll try one.”
“Let's get hidden first,” Josh advised. “We'll see what's going on. And see where he takes us. He might be going home.”
“I bet he's going to sell these melons,” Abbey said. “He'd be going to town with them then, and when we get there we can hide out and listen and find out where the palace is.”
Even as she spoke, the farmer said, “Giddup!” and the horse moved forward with a jerk.
It was pleasant riding in the wagon. They kept hidden under the hay, very close to each other.
Josh said, “As soon as it stops we'll have to get out, or we'll get caught.”
The trip was fairly long, and the shadows were lengthening when Reb risked a look out. He rose up carefully, his eyes on the old man, who was half asleep on the wagon seat. “There's several houses around,” he reported. “There's a town up ahead, and over to one side it looks like what could be a castle.”
They all raised their heads carefully for a look, and the closer they got the more Josh was convinced it was a castle.
“The road turns off,” he whispered. “I believe he's going there.”
The wagon lumbered up to a gate where some armed men stopped it. “I bring melons for the king's table,” the old farmer muttered.
“Let him in,” a burly guard said.
As the wagon rolled forward, the guard reached out, and Josh, watching from under the straw, saw a huge hand coming. The melon he was hiding under suddenly disappeared as well as another beside it, exposing Abbey. Quickly he jerked her aside, and she scrambled under the straw.
But the guards didn't notice. They were laughing, Josh saw, having stolen two juicy melons.
“This is the palace,” Jake whispered. “That's what these guards mean. Now all we have to do is find Captain Daybright and Dawn.”
“That may be a harder trick than it sounds like,” Josh said. Then he grinned. “But at least we're here. We've got a chance.”
13
A Touch of Humility
This is the fanciest place I've ever lived in,” Daybright said, “but I'd rather be in a hut back in our own country than here.”
“Me too,” Dawn said. She looked around the luxurious “apartment” that the king had ordered built for them. It was really an enormous dollhouse. Two of the rooms were like magnificent bedrooms with carpet and furniture made on a miniature scale out of the finest wood. There were purple hangings on the walls, windows to look out of. Everything desirable, except that the place was still a prison.
Their lives had been made miserable since they arrived at the palace. Every day their “house” was placed on a low table, and the multitude of visitors that came to the palace to wait on the king were peering at them constantly. There was not a moment's privacy all day. At night the house was put back in a room where they were cared for by a tall, thin giantess with a sour face.
It was now almost time for their prison to be put back for the night. Only two visitors remained, a fat young man with cruel eyes and a girl who simpered at his remarks.
“Why, they look like they're real, don't they?” the fat young man said.
He reached out a hand, and the girl said, “You're not supposed to touch them.”
“I can do what I want. I'm the prince, aren't I?” He looked like anything but a prince. He was fat and had a pasty face.
Dawn tried to get away, but his pudgy fingers caught her, and he squeezed her so cruelly that she cried out.
Instantly Daybright threw himself at the giant hand. He had nothing for a weapon, but he sank his teeth into the flesh of the prince's huge thumb.
“Ow!”
The prince jerked his hand back, dropping Dawn, who fell to the floor. A look of rage came over his face, and he flicked Daybright with his finger, sending the captain reeling back against the wall with a thud.
“You're going to get in trouble for that!” the girl said.
And then the woman was there. “All right, My Prince, that's enough for the day,” she scolded.
Then she looked down. Dawn was holding Daybright, who had been stunned by the impact. The woman leaned over and studied them carefully. “You're all right,” she said.
When they were back in the apartment, the woman put out food and water for them, then sat down in a chair and began to read.
Dawn knew that their voices could not reach her. She said, “Are you all right, Ryland?”
Daybright shook his head. “I guess so.” He grinned at her as he sat up. “I didn't do as well with that fat boy as I did with the snake.”
“He's awful! They're all awful,” she said. She touched his forehead tenderly. “You're going to have a bruise,” she whispered.
“Well, I've had them before.” He got to his feet. “Let's have something to eat. One thing about this place, we get good food.”
They sat down and began to eat. The dishes were made of solid gold. And tiny knives and forks had been fashioned especially for them.
“When we get away, I wish we could take all this silverware and the plates with us,” Daybright said. He took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. “Enough gold around here to buy the whole world, it seems like. At least enough to buy a ship!”
After they finished eating they sat on the couch, staring at the pictures on the walls, painted by the court painter. One was of the sea with a ship bounding through the waves.
“That fellow doesn't know how to paint ships,” Day-bright said. Then he added wistfully, “I'd sure like to be on the old Dolphin right now—a long way from here.”
Dawn had nothing to say, and he asked, “What's the matter?”
“I was just thinking about the time I slapped Sarah.”
“Why were you thinking about that?”
“Because when that boy hit you, he was doing exactly what I've done all my life. I've always had a horrible temper. I don't know how many servants I've hit like that.”
Daybright was silent for a while, then he reached over and picked up her hand.
To her surprise, he kissed it, and she felt herself flush.
“You're not that kind of girl anymore,” he said. “Whatever happens, you've come a long way to being a very sweet and generous person.”
Dawn had heard compliments on her beauty all her life, but somehow this pleased her more than any of those. “I wish I could go home again,” she said. “I'd like to make it up to some of the people that I was so mean to. I wouldn't treat them that way anymore.”
After they had talked for a while, she said, “It's time to go to bed. I hate the thought of tomorrow—another day of being pawed and poked and laughed at.”
“Let's sit up for a while. That old witch'll go to bed pretty soon, and I'll tell you some of my stories.”
“Will they be true?” She smiled.
“Mostly,” he said. “But in my stories, I'm always the hero, no matter what.”
Before long the tall woman took the candle, put it on her bedside table, and lay down, pulling th
e cover over her. Soon her snores were reverberating.
“She sounds just like a sawmill,” Daybright said. “But at least she can't hear us and won't tell us to be quiet. Now, about these stories. Let me tell you about the time I saved a beautiful, wealthy young woman from being devoured by an awful beast…”
They sat up for more than two hours. The candle burned down by the woman's bedside, and it cast a flickering yellow gleam over the room. Ryland Daybright had stopped telling his stories and was listening while Dawn told of her childhood.
At last she fell silent, and they said nothing for a time. But then Ryland raised his head alertly. “What was that?”
“I didn't hear anything.”
“I did. Listen.”
Dawn listened as hard as she could. Then she said, “I think I did hear something that time.”
They got to their feet and moved to the windows. They were not real windows, of course. They would not open, but they had real glass in them.
“I can't see anything—anything different,” Dawn said.
“Listen again. Did you hear that?”
This time Dawn knew she heard it A bumping sound.
Then, “Dawn! Captain!”
“It's the Sleepers!” Daybright exclaimed. “They're calling for us!” He ran to the door. It was bolted on the outside, he knew, but he beat on it and began yelling, “Here! We're in here!”
The voice came again, “All right. Be quiet—we're coming!”
Dawn joined him, her eyes large, and held onto his hand as they waited. “This is like a dream,” she said. “Somebody must be playing a joke on us.”
“No, that was Josh's voice,” Daybright whispered.
Then the door opened, and there they were—Josh and Jake, grinning as if they had lost their minds.
“Well,” Jake said, swaggering in, “here's another fine mess I've had to get you out of!”
The two rescuers were suddenly swarmed by the two captives. Captain Daybright and Dawn threw themselves onto the Sleepers and almost drove them to their knees.
Josh pulled himself loose, saying, “This is all very well, but we've got a long way to go.”
Daybright put his hands on the shoulder of each boy. “I'll never forget this,” he said. “I never thought either of you was particularly good-looking, but right now you're the handsomest guys I've ever seen in my life.”
Dawn knew that getting out of the palace was fairly dangerous, and not until they were back into the woods could Josh tell the full story of how they had managed to find the apartment and finally set them free.
“Well,” Josh said as he ended his story, “we've come this far. I guess you know what comes next.”
Daybright nodded and set his jaw. “Yes, we've got to find a ship. It's the only way we have of getting away from this place.”
14
Wash Makes a Find
The struggles that the Sleepers, Dawn, and Daybright endured getting back to the sea would take long to relate. They traveled mostly by night, keeping a close watch out for marauding owls. They did not manage to catch a ride on a wagon again, so it was a long journey before they finally stood on the shore and looked out over the ocean.
Ryland Daybright filled his lungs with the salt air and then expelled it, saying, “Whatever else happens, I'll never get away from the sea again!”
Josh looked out over the endless expanse of blue-green water broken by whitecaps. To him, what they had to do seemed impossible. “I don't see how we could ever find our way anywhere on the sea. It's just—nothing,” he said.
“Give me a ship under my feet, Josh, and I'll show you how to find something. We have to sail east, and I know how to do that!”
“Yes, but a boat—ship—we'll never be able to build one,” Dave said. “We're not shipbuilders.”
The group all looked at Daybright, for he was their only hope. Josh knew that none of them, even if they had a ship, could possibly find his way across the uncharted waters.
Daybright smiled. “We've come too far together, friends, to be afraid now. We'll build a ship. Or we'll find something! I'll float across in a bathtub if I have to, but I'm going back home again!”
This salty speech cheered the rest of the group.
Josh said briskly, “Well, the first thing we'll do is build us a place to live. We've got to stay out of the reach of wild animals. And we've got to have some kind of weapons, even if it's only clubs or spears. So let's get to work on it.”
Reb said, “The first thing is weapons, and I know where I can get some. That farm we passed back aways has got to have a blacksmith shop of some kind. There's bound to be old blades and things lying around that we could use. I'm going back and find something.”
“I'll go with you,” Dave said. “We can make bows too. And arrows.”
The two boys hurried off amid warnings to be careful. The rest looked for a safe place to stay.
Dawn and Sarah went searching together.
“Look right up there!” Sarah said. “That looks like a cave.”
Dawn looked up the steep, rocky bank. “It does look like an opening in the riverbank. Could we get into it?”
The cave mouth was almost hidden by a tree. Sarah discovered that by climbing the tree and out on a branch she could peer inside. “This may be just the place, Dawn. I think I could jump into it from here, but then I don't know if I could get out again. We'd better go get Captain Daybright.”
Daybright came, crawled out on the limb, and leaped easily across to the ledge that was outside the cave. He disappeared into it and stayed so long that Sarah became nervous.
But then he poked his head out, saying, “This will do fine. There's a draft here. Evidently it's got a chimney kind of opening somewhere that brings the air on through. We could even build a fire, and it would carry the smoke off.”
As soon as the other boys came back, the whole thing became possible. Reb and Dave had found more than one metal instrument that could be fashioned into spearheads, and there was a small knife that could be wielded as a sword.
Daybright swished it through the air. “This will be fine. I'll trim some saplings, and we can make a ladder to get up into the cave.”
The labor went on for two days. Constant raids were made on the farmstead. A dog investigated them once, but when Daybright poked at him with a spear, he yelped and went back to cower at the front of the house. At the farm they also found cloth, some smoked bacon, string, and odds and ends from the blacksmith shop. Finally on the third day they were set up in their cave.
“Well, be it ever so humble, there's no place like home,” Jake said. He was leaning against the back of the cave, eating part of a huge potato that Sarah and Dawn had baked in the ashes.
It was the smallest potato they could find, yet was as big as a watermelon. It made a meal for all of them. And when they had broken it open, the steaming white meat sent forth a delicious odor.
They toasted the bacon on sticks over the fire. They even hauled to the cave an old tub that served as a storage bin for water, and a spring nearby furnished that.
“Well, this is all right,” Wash said, “but I'm about ready to start building that boat.”
“What about it? Could we do it, captain?” Josh demanded.
Daybright must have thought long about this. “I just don't see how,” he said. “You need all kinds of special tools and forms and fittings—besides material! It's just more than we could do.”
A silence fell over the cave.
Suddenly Dawn said, “We'll be all right.”
Everyone looked at her, and she blushed. “I guess I've learned some hard lessons. One thing is never to give up. I'd just about given up when you came and got us out of the palace. I don't think I'll ever give up again.” She looked over at Daybright, and there was a warm expression about her soft lips.
“Did you see that?” Sarah whispered to Josh.
“See what? Don't poke me in the ribs like that!”
“You are blin
d, Josh Adams, purely blind.”
“What was I supposed to see?” Josh demanded, but Sarah merely gave him a disgusted look.
“You boys are all alike. No romance in you!”
For three more days they stayed in the cave, going out on forays for food, searching but finding nothing that could lead to the building of any kind of ship.
It was nearly dusk on the third day when Wash came running.
“I've got it—I've got it!”
Josh and the others were gathered inside the cave, feeling a little discouraged.
Daybright looked out. “You've got what?”
Wash, his eyes big, climbed the ladder and grabbed Daybright by the sleeve. “Come on, let me show you!”
The crew followed him down and then moved the ladder to its hiding place. They went through the woods, and an hour later they were still impatient. Wash had not said a word except “Come on, you've got to see this!”
“He's probably found a watermelon patch,” Reb said in disgust.
Wash heard him and grinned, his white teeth flashing. “You just wait. You'll see something!”
They had just gone down into a valley when Josh heard the sound of water.
“There! Look and tell me I haven't seen nothing.”
Wash pointed proudly, and Josh and the others rushed forward.
“A boat! A giant rowboat!” Josh exclaimed. “Look at it!” He waved at Wash's find, then looked around. “It must have drifted off from someplace upstream. Looks like it hasn't been used in a long time.”
“Tell me I was looking for watermelons?” Wash said scornfully. “How's that, Captain Daybright?”
Daybright's eyes were alight as he scrambled aboard. It was a flat-bottomed fishing boat, big enough to carry one giant or perhaps two small ones. It was giant-size—at least thirty-five feet long and more than twelve feet wide. Two boards were firmly fastened, one in the middle and one in the rear, for seats.
“What do you think, Captain?” Wash cried. “Will it do?”
“I think it might,” Daybright said.
Voyage of the Dolphin Page 11