XXVA PRECIOUS PRISONER
IT was late in the night when Peterkin’s pumpkin boat came riding into the city’s calm harbor. The reflections of the stars which had winked up into the sky were dotting the black water with melted gold. Red and green lights from the prows of sleeping boats and piers lay glowing in the easy tide. Not a sound—excepting the soft slap of little waves along the bottom of the drifting Pumperkin.
Peterkin, as he stood on his ladder’s top rung, looked out across the harbor toward the huddled houses, gray and looming, with dim lit window panes blinking through the dark.Over the roofs he could make out the form of the huge dome of the palace—and he knew that there was the room of his princess. Aye, there was Princess Clem!
Could she be asleep? The hour was so late ... perhaps her nurse had tucked her, long ago, into her warm and comfy bed. But, no—oh, no! For, suddenly, he caught the gleam of a little light from the window just below the dome. Yes, he was sure it was from the princess’s window. She must be yet awake. She must still be watching—be waiting—for his return, as she promised she would do, and his heart gave a great throb for joy.
His Pumperkin drifted slowly in toward the shore. He heard a strange roaring, angry and deep. It was the rush of water he knew; perhaps some sewer, speeding its underground course and emptying itself, at the last, into the sea.
In the midst of the rumble of water, he thought he heard a short splash; something dark went down in the white froth of the water, then rose to the surface near his boat—then sank and rose again not an arm’s length away. Peterkin peered over the edge to see what it was. He gasped and almost shrieked; it was a man! He reached down, made a wild grab at the floating jacket—pulled, tugged, hoisted—ouf! and he had the drowning one inside his Pumperkin.He gazed down into the face of the rescued. A loud cry escaped him. It was the Toothless Farmer!
Yes, the toothless old villain—the arch-enemy whom he had set out to find! And you and I know how it happened that this old farmer came to be plunging into the sea so suddenly and without warning.... But Peterkin didn’t!
The toothless one had an unlucky time of it, didn’t he? For here he was in the very clutches of the hero—at the mercy of Peterkin, whom he had played so false—Peterkin,who had resolved revenge upon him for all the wrongs he had done in the Four Kingdoms!
No sooner did he open his eyes than he saw heroic Peterkin above him, fists clenched and anger in his eyes.
“Ow, ow,” chattered he, his red gums bobbing with fear and chill, “don’t threaten me! Why do you clinch your fists at me, eh? I’ve never met you before, have I?”
Peterkin laughed scornfully. “What a lie! Don’t you remember who it was who brought you into these Four Kingdoms, not so long ago, astride of a flying shell? Don’t you remember whom you tried to fling off, down to a crashing death? What! don’t remember me?”
The old man grew green with fright. He wrung his thin, crooked fingers. “I—I thought—I thought you were dead,” he moaned. “I didn’t dream of your escaping death ... dear, oh dear, I suppose you’ll kill me now, eh? Well, just let me tell you my story, first—oh, please, let me tell it—please, please, please!”
And, of course, who could resist such pleading? Certainly not Peterkin, who folded his arms sternly and waited for the end of the tale.