Page:The Floating Prince - Frank R Stockton.djvu/49

34 Thereupon, the aristocrats were taken away to an inner chamber of the palace.

When the admiral and his companions had been left on board the vessel, they felt very uneasy for they did not know what might happen to them next. In a short time, however, when the voices of the aristocrats had died away as they proceeded into the city, the admiral perceived the point of a gimlet coming up through the deck, close to him. Then the gimlet was withdrawn, and these words came up through the hole:

"Have no fear. Your navy will stand by you!"

"It will be all right," said the admiral to the others. "I can depend upon her."

And now was heard a noise of banging and chopping, and soon the cook cut her way from her imprisonment below, and made her appearance on deck. She went to work vigorously, and, taking the bags from the prisoners' heads, unbound them, and set them at liberty. Then she gave them a piece of advice.

"The thing for us to do." said she, "is to get away from here as fast as we can. If those young rascals come back, there's no knowin' what they'll do."

"Do you mean," said the master, "that we should sail away and desert my scholars? Who can tell what might happen to them, left here by themselves?"

"We should not consider what might happen to them if they were left," said one of the philosophers, "but what might happen to us if they were not left. We must away." "Certainly!" cried the admiral. "While I have the soul of the commander of the navy of Nassimia left within me, I will not stay here to have my head put in a bag! Never! Set sail!"

It was not easy to set sail, for the cook and the philosophers were not very good at that sort of work; but they got the sail