[Editor: Here the manuscript reverts to English, though still in the Batronian syllabary]

Departure from Zemmery, c.10 April

At nightfall one day, half a dozen women were trying to feed me, when I heard faint cries in the distance. The women panicked, and ran out, leaving me to my fate. And they did not lock the door behind them! Here was my chance. Not being strapped down, I went to the door and peeped out. A dusty road ran between me and the riverbank, with the river far below, and the opposite bank close by. Huge cliffs reared up on both sides, and a long crack of dusk was visible far above.

A phalanx of horsemen appeared – except that they were not horses but cinquii, and not normal men but those hairy, swarthy dwarves I had seen fishing in the driver the day I drifted down. Gleaming swords were raised above their heads. I drew back in fear, but they had already seen me, as I peeped around the door.

Their reaction dismayed me – though I should have been prepared for it by now. They burst into helpless laughter. About ten cinquii, with two riders each, stopped at the door of the hut. Some of them were so taken by laughter that they fell of their mounts and writhed on the road, almost rolling into the river. Apart from their vicious swords, they did not seem fearsome – though all the villagers were hiding.

So I decided to speak to one of these little men. To judge from his ridiculous clothing, he must have been the leader. "My good sir," I said (in English – who knows what barbarous language they might speak), "Would you be so good as to assist me in returning to Underednu, where my anxious guide must be awaiting me?"

At this earnest request, the leader fell off the cinquus. It was a long fall to the ground, but he was laughing so hard that he did not seem to notice.

Finally, two of them came to me, and gently pulled me from my prison-hut. They had cloths that resembled wide scarves, and tied three of these around me. Decency at last! I thought, warming to these humorous dwarves, as they led me carefully to the leading cinquus.

I was not prepared for their next movement: I found myself being tied to the front of the cinquus, between its neck and its forelegs. They shook me hard to make sure that I would not fall off. The cinquus, resenting my company, tried to spit on me, but I was too far behind its neck.

An odd place to ride (I thought to myself) but not uncomfortable. Obviously there was no seating to spare on the back of this steed. With much raucous fwobolling, the invaders left the town. I was their only prize. They were still laughing.

As it had now become quite dark in that gorge, I finally realized why they had tied me to the front of the cinquus – and perhaps why they were laughing at me. In short, I was luminous. I had become a human glow-worm. My entire body gleamed with blue light, and the thinner the part, the brighter the glow. My fingers, toes, and nose (and perhaps another recently over-used part, hidden under the central scarf) were brighter than the full moon. Tied to the front of the leading cinquus, I was a human headlight. The British railways would have been proud of me.

However, being a headlight was not my most preferred occupation. After all, I was leading a bandit gang, presenting a well-lit target. It was also cold, as we tore through the night air; the scarves were not enough to keep me warm, and the cinquii were dashing uphill at surprising speed. If mine were to stumble, I should be dashed onto sharp rocks. Fortunately, there were no attacks on our party, and the cinquus – like Kit Mut Gar – was sure-footed. However, I became colder and colder – and thus bluer and bluer.

After many hours’ racing uphill, we stopped with a start. I woke up, so I must have been asleep – which I should not have thought possible. It was after dawn, and we were in a rocky clearing. Caves were on one side, trees on another, and on the other three sides the land fell away to a breathtaking view of the sea, far below and far away.

The riders dismounted, and untied me. "Thank you for saving me," I told them politely. "Is this your camp?"

In answer, they all roared with laughter. More of them – mostly women and children – had come out of the caves, and there were perhaps fifty or a hundred in all. They were laughing at me: bright blue (even in daylight) and unclothed. I found the scarves, re-wrapped them around me, and they all laughed again. At least they are not malicious, I told myself.

Now they were preparing a large fire. Dead animals were untied from the cinquii, and thrown onto the fire. A few hours later, the blackened carcases were ripped open, and the people fell onto the cooked meat. The children who had been climbing over me offered me a selection of tasty morsels, which I accepted gratefully: a welcome change from glow-worm soup and raspberries. After the feast, everybody lay down in the sun and fell asleep. I found it most pleasant to be free of those lustful women, and to be in daylight again. However, I had no idea of my whereabouts, nor how to rejoin my route and find my guide. Nor did these wild dwarves and I have any language in common.

Late in the afternoon, the sleepers stirred.

As they did not understand me, I realized I had to teach them English. I began by trying to teach them my name. Pointing to myself, I said clearly "Edward Lear"

They roared with laughter. Eventually they learned: they pointed to me, and said "Air Lair. Air Lair. Air Lair."

I pointed to them, prompting them to mention their own names, but they collapsed with laughter, uttering a word like "triboldy" (stressed on the first syllable). I realized then that my linguistic endeavours might take a little time.

Towards dusk, a group of men rounded up the grazing cinquii. They were clearly preparing for another journey. When the steeds were ready, the men came over to me, holding several scarves. They pushed away the children that were climbing over me, and bade me follow them.

I then realized my fate with this group. I was no longer a stud ram, but a human lantern. In the sunlight, my blueness had been hardly discernible, but now, with night falling, I was again brilliantly blue. Though wondering if I should be blue forever, I acknowledged that to be a lantern was a less onerous task than being a procreator.

After dark, we set off, again a group of about 20 little men on about 10 cinquii. I was hopeful that if they were to raid some habitation (other than the village below the cliff) I might be able to escape.

We rode for hours, finally stopping at a silent village. My companions made a great deal of noise, but no windows or doors were unbarred. All the inhabitants must have been indoors, quaking in fear, as their domestic animals were killed and slung on the cinquii, their crops ruined, and loose possessions plundered – all by the light of my body. I was not happy about this.

After this adventure, we returned to the lair, arriving as dawn broke. Going quietly into a cave, I could see the women and children sleeping in giant birds’ nests, raised far above the cave floor, perhaps to deter rats. At first wondering why it was not darker in the cave, I realized (from the movement of shadows) that this was not due to moonlight, but to my presence. On hearing the slight commotion of my entrance, several of the sleepers in birds’ nests woke up, noticed me, and bade me climb into their nest. I emitted enough light to enable them to play a card game. The shouts of the gamers woke the children, who all crowded into the nest. It was holding about 20 of us when the support pole snapped, tossing everybody onto the floor of the cave – not a great distance. Everybody thought this a great joke, except for me, as one of my elbows was bruised in the fall.

There was a huge iron hook in the ceiling of the cave. They found a loosely woven wicker basket, bade me climb in, and hoisted me on a rope so that the basket hung from the hook. Lying in the basket just below the ceiling, I was their candle. It was not an uncomfortable position – rather like being in a hammock. I soon fell asleep.

I awoke to complete silence. I looked out of my basket, at the birds’ nests below me. They were empty. I shouted, but nobody came. Eventually I was able to jump into the nearest nest. As I did so, I was disconcerted by the light moving around me, and landed on one edge of the nest. The shock of my landing broke its pole, and once again I found myself on the floor of the cave. This time, I was unhurt. I strolled out into the daylight, clad (like a barbarian) only in my central scarf. They were all at the bonfire, eating again, I was greeted like an old friend and a pleasant woman gave me meat. It seemed to be a sphinx steak, and was quite tasty.

This life is all very well, I thought, but I cannot stay. I tried to communicate this message to the woman who was feeding me. Some men behind her shouted, as if in encouragement, and their rude gestures led me to reinterpret their intentions: surely they were not trying to marry her to me! Saying nothing, I continued to be polite, but resolved that I had to leave as soon as possible. Here, at least, there were plenty of children: that was a relief. But my companion, clearly past her youth, seemed to have none. She was even hairier than most of them, with tufts growing from her ears and nostrils, and through a fold in her clothes I thought I even saw a tail. I was at once both highly revolted and highly curious. I tried to speak Batronian to her, but she only laughed.

But then it was dusk, and time to go hunting again.

Every night, for a week or two, I was the light that led the way of the bandit party. In the dead of night, we raided villages and settlements, but saw no towns of any size. If the inhabitants saw me, they screamed with terror, and hid away. My companions, the Triboldies, then raided with impunity their granaries, liquorice crops, and domestic animals.

During the pillaging, they left me unguarded, but I could see that I had no chance to slip away: I shone far too brightly for concealment. They made me a furry vest that covered my torso, but left my limbs and thinner parts exposed. Had I appealed to the raided villagers to rescue me, they would have shrieked in terror. Like it or not, I was a triboldy now. What worried me most was the possibility that we might raid a village where somebody had a gun: I would be the perfect target.

Freedom regained, whereabouts uncertain, c.20 April

My captivity ended by the merest of chances. We were pushing through a thicket of creepers one night; I had to use my hands to force them apart so that the cinquus could pass through. One was as thick as my arm. I grasped it with both hands to push it away, when it seemed to take on a life of its own: freed by my jerking from the restraining undergrowth, it soared upwards, like a released spring. I was holding it so tightly that I soared upwards with it, ripping the scarves that tied me to the cinquus. They were arranged to resist the downward pull of gravity, not the upward pull of a springy creeper.

So it was that I found myself in a treetop, far above my companions. I could not see them, in the dark, but they could obviously see my light. We shouted at one another for some time, but they obviously could not reach me. What would they do? I wondered.

After much shouting, they went back the way they had come. I was alone in the treetop, in the middle of the night, shining like a small moon. It was not uncomfortable in the treetop, surrounded by a thicket of small branches. I fell asleep, half-expecting the triboldies to return and rescue me.

Awoken at sunrise by jealous birds, I pushed the leaves aside and looked down. It was not so far to the ground – perhaps only twenty feet. I set out to climb down through the springy branches. In no time I was on the ground.

My first thought was that I was free.

My second thought was that I hungry, and penniless, in the midst of a wilderness, and wore nothing but a fur vest. It seemed preferable to wait for the triboldies to return. But in the meantime, I resolved to walk back along the path along which we had crashed in the night.

I walked for hours, mostly downhill. My feet became quite sore. Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) I met nobody, and saw no buildings. Twice I noticed forks in the track, and examined both branches carefully for cinquus tracks. My goal, naturally, was not to go back to the triboldy lair. At both points, I chose the fork that seemed most cinquus-free – though as the ground was very dry, I was far from certain.

Hours later, I had not seen a soul, nor any buildings. But after fording a small stream, I noticed a large basket lying near the track. Stopping to examine it, I realized it was a priest-basket, of the type I had seen in Kitoozh. These baskets are like giant hats, which completely cover the body, but are open at the bottom for walking. They have openings for the face, two hands, and a hinged pouch at the front, though which small items can be transferred to and from the priest. As I was unsuitably dressed for company, it seemed that I should don the basket, and become a priest. But why was this basket abandoned? Where was its owner? Seeing a stream nearby, I looked along its banks, and soon found a man asleep under a tree. He was wearing only a hair shirt (so that is what priests wear under their baskets!) and was lying on his back, snoring loudly, with an empty flask nearby. It smelled of liquorice arrack.

"Good sir, I need this basket more than you!" I told the drunken priest.

It was more difficult than I expected to don the basket. It was lying on its side when I found it, so I crawled in, but my own weight preventing me from righting it. So I crawled out, lifted it high, and tried to drop it down over me – but I could not hold it straight enough, and it fell to the ground. In the end, I squatted down with the opening in front of me, and pulled it over my head and jumped upright at the same time. This was successful: I was now a Batronian priest, but with a blue nose to indicate unorthodoxy.

The basket was not uncomfortable. The top, lined with pitch and soft grass, made a comfortable head-rest. There were handles inside, at waist level, which I could grasp with my hands.

I walked a long way on that path, which followed the stream downhill, but still did not see any sign of human habitation. Because of the face-hole, I had to turn my whole body to see what lay on each side.

At the foot of a steep incline, I suddenly found myself in a group of my own kind: ten basketed priests. They surrounded me with questions, such as "Have you seen Father Gabrouvious?"

I said I had not. He had been with this group, who were on a pilgrimage to a placed called Pelagiboo, but had fallen behind. Now they were retracing their steps to look for him.

They asked me lots of questions: my name, where I was from, the name of my Abogome, which group I was with, why I did not speak Batronian well, why my nose was blue, and so on. I answered as well as I could. My lack of Batronian was because I had taken a vow of silence years ago, my blue nose was due to drinking glow-worm soup, and so on.

They still seemed uneasy, perhaps because they had never heard of an Abogome called Queen Victoria. "Your basket is very like that of Father Gabrouvious," said one, sounding suspicious.

"One basket is very much like another," I said. "Especially when made by the same woman."

"Woman!" they exclaimed, horrified. "Where we come from, women are forbidden to make priest-baskets."

"I must return to my vow of silence," I declared. I tried to wave at them, but my arms were not free. Then I tried to incline my head in a farewellish way, but the basket prevented that. So "God bless you all," I pronounced, and went on.

They stood behind, muttering and suspicious.

My need for clothes is greater than that of Father Gabrouvious, I told myself. I shall leave this basket behind as soon as I find real clothes. I continued on my walk, knowing now that I was going to a place called Pelagiboo, which was close to Limbo.

It was mid-afternoon now, and the day was hot. I was glad of the shade of my basket-hat. Soon I met a woman, her back covered with sticks: she was collecting firewood. She looked alarmed when she saw me, and scurried off the track. Is she afraid of a blue nose? I wondered. Her skin was so brown that it was almost black. "God bless you!" I shouted as I passed. She made a frightened whimper, and fled still further from the path.

Soon, I met two men, also dark-skinned, trying to persuade a cow to co-operate with them. They bowed respectfully when they saw me. Perhaps they thought I was Father Gabrouvious. "Good sirs," I announced. "I wonder if you can help me. My clothes and money have been taken from me and I have only this basket. You will be recompensed in Heaven if you can lend me some clothes."

"How is that possible?" said one. "We are wearing our clothes."

"Do you take us for rich men?" said the other. "We have only the clothes we wear."

"May God release you from your poverty!" I declared, and continued on my way.

I could see now that finding clothes would be difficult. And since this was near Limbo, my things and my guide at Underednu must be very far away. But I had to get rid of this basket before the priests came back and I was exposed as a thief. Everybody I met would be able to tell the priests "He went that way." I considered leaving the track, but as both sides of this valley were planted with low liquorice-bushes, I would be too visible in the fields. It was getting cold, too. A wind had come up, and was blowing through the holes in my basket.

The stream was now much wider: almost a small river, with rocky edges. It swung from one side of the valley to the other, and the path sometimes crossed it: either as a ford, or as a ramshackle bridge. Crossing one of these bridges, I noticed an array of washed clothes, spread out on the rocks to dry. I stopped, and looked around me (to do that, I had to turn my entire basket). Nobody was in sight, apart from a few peasants crouching down in the liquorice fields, perhaps weeding their crops. I dashed down to the rocks, and looked at the drying clothes. Most were women’s clothes, ragged and baggy, in pastel colours, but two garments were more suitable for me: a loose jacket and trousers in mid-grey, with an almost military air.

Standing over them in my basket, I crouched down, and snatched them up into the pouch. I felt extremely guilty, but could envisage no alternative.

I walked another mile or so, looking for a private spot to exchange the basket for the grey suit. I turned a corner in the valley, and everything stopped. The stream disappeared into a narrow defile. The path reached a large round rock, and came to an abrupt end.

While I puzzled about whether this was Pelagiboo, I slipped behind the rock, out of the basket, and donned the suit – keeping the furry vest, which was warm and comfortable. The arms and legs were too short for me, and of course there were no shoes, but it was more comfortable than the basket. As I stood there, wondering what to do next, two boys appeared, following my route around the rock. They were very surprised to see me. They did not seem to notice the priest-basket, lying on its side in the undergrowth.

I hoped they did not know the owner of the grey suit. He might be an Army man. If so, he would have a gun, and might shoot me.

"I want to go to Limbo," I told them, in my best Batronian. "Is it nearby?"

They both laughed. "You want to go home?" said the larger boy, obviously misunderstanding.

They led me around the rock, through some bushes, and up a ridge. There we lay down, to avoid the wind that howled behind us. The view was magnificent. From the narrow hilltop, I could look down to my left, to the east, over a deep blue sea that stretched into distant Asian climes.

The only problem with looking to the left was that, due to the extremely strong winds, I had to lean over so far that if the breeze had slackened I should have tumbled down the cliff.

A few steps to my right, suddenly out of the wind, we looked down on a splendid blue bay, oval in shape, and at least five miles from end to end. Across the mouth of the bay were two towering headlands: the northern one on which we stood, and (a little below us) a southern headland, much rockier and narrower. Between the two headlands was a narrow but deep chasm, just wide enough for a ship to pass through - or would have been, were it not for the savage tooth-like rocks at the base of each headland. The slightest miscalculation on the pilot's part, and the ship would have impaled itself on these rocks.

At the foot of the cliffs that surrounded this bay was a plain, a mile or two across. The sandy shores were fringed by a tree-clad park, beyond which lay a city. An enormous city, of low white buildings, gleaming in the sun. Its streets, lined with cypresses, formed a square grid pattern, interrupted only by a broad esplanade around the circumference of the bay. Near the centre of the esplanade was an enormous grey statue or building, almost like a human figure. Below the southern headland, a large river flowed into the bay; it seemed to tumble out of the cliff a few miles behind its mouth. Beyond the river, the view was obscured by a column of evil orange smoke, perhaps from a large fire.

From our ledge thousands of feet above the bay, I could see tiny greyish figures - people walking, perhaps - but no vehicles or horses were visible from that height.

"Limbo!" exclaimed the first boy, whose name was Darius.

I had not expected Limbo to look so ordered, or so clean. I had expected sun-bleached ruins, as in Greece; but all the buildings seemed intact. If only I had had my painting kit with me!

Instantly I was seized with the urge to visit Limbo - heedless of everybody's warnings. I announced my intention.

"Fortunately, it is impossible to get there," said the other boy – who I now realized was a girl. She was right. The cliffs were far too steep, and covered in loose stones.

"Impossible to reach!" I said.

"No, no, no, no," said Darius. Damitry taught me that when Batronians utter an even number of Yeses or Noes, they are telling the truth. An odd number of Noes and Yeses denotes a lie: the more odd Noes and Yeses, the more blatant the lie. But a large even number of Noes and Yeses denotes truth. So four Noes meant that Limbo was by no means impossible to reach.

Descent into Limbo, late April 1854

"I’ll show you how we get down," said Darius. "The bombylios."

He walked back along the ridge, found a stunted tree, and snapped off a bough, as thick as a man’s wrist. This he carried back, and thrust it into one of a hand-sized group of holes I had noticed earlier. It went in, to a great depth - perhaps five feet. Holding the thin end, still with its leaves on, he jiggled the bough up and down, as if stirring a cup of tea.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Pshu-squishu-pshu!" he said, holding a finger to his lips (Batronian for "Please be silent.")

After a few minutes of stirring the bough, he let out a great whoop, and sproinged the bough from the hole.

A huge snake reared out of the hole, its jaws firmly grasping the bough. I stepped back so sharply that I almost fell off the cliff.

The snake glanced at us, but was more interested in biting the bough. That was its undoing. Darius let go of the bough, walked behind the snake, picked up a large rock, and dashed its brains out.

The snake was pink.

"There!" said the girl proudly. "Isn’t that the longest worm you’ve ever seen? And the smelliest!"

"Very pretty," I said, breathing again. "But how does that help me reach Limbo?"

Darius motioned me back. We hid behind a small bumberry bush, waiting.

Shortly, a bombylios – the giant bee, described by Aristotle - smelled the dead worm, and came down to investigate. The wind from its mighty wings shook the bush we hid behind. The bombylios ignored us, sucking buzzily at the worm’s brains. Its sting was the size of a carving knife.

Darius nudged me and the girl. We stood up slowly, a large rock in each hand, and hurled all our rocks at the bombylios in quick succession. The bombylios saw my first rock, and did a little sideways hop. My second rock (to my amazement) hit its sting, which seemed to disconcert it. All the other rocks hit it on the head. Dazed, it sank down.

"Now!" said Darius. "Climb on its back. But keep away from that sting!"

The monster’s back was covered in coarse fur, striped orange and black. It was thin and spiky: more like rough grass than fur.

"If you want to see Limbo, it will carry you down."

While I was deliberating, Darius sprang onto the bombylios’s back. His hair blew alternately left and right in the huge wind its wings were making.

"Don’t go!" the girl howled, rushing towards him.

"Don’t be silly, Xixini," he scolded. "I’ll never go there again."

"Put your hands over its eyes," he shouted to me, over the roar of the wings. "It will try to fly away, but it won’t know where to go, and you will be too heavy for it. Ride it down to the beach below."

He showed me how to make it turn left or right, by uncovering its right or left eye. They were hideous eyes, the size of tea-cups, black and bulging.

"The eyes tickle your hands," Xixini warned. "And keep your knees tightly together, so that it can’t throw you off."

She stood on one of its wings, and Darius slid off its back, onto the other wing. Gingerly I climbed onto its back. The slight indentation, though hideous, was not uncomfortable; it was shaped like a saddle. I felt safe enough there, and tried putting my hands over its eyes. It had very scratchy eyebrows.

My companions stepped off the bombylios’s wings, and gave it several hard kicks in its side - nimbly avoiding the sting.

With a terrible buzz, it flew off – and downwards. The huge wings flapped in my face, and the beast lurched toward the cliff. I removed my left hand from its eye.

Darius and Xixini were already far above me. I could hear their shouts of joy – or was it dismay?

When the beast swung away from the cliff, I put my hand back over the eye. It was struggling, trying to shake me off, but I was too heavy for it. We descended jerkily toward the waters. The bay had seemed small from far above, but the closer I approached it, the larger it became. It occurred to me that, some day, I really must take swimming lessons.

I removed both hands from its eyes, to observe what would happen. The beast’s head reared up, as it tried to fly higher, and it was this last impetus which brought me close to the beach.

Below me in the bay, I saw a white buoy, the size of a large watermelon. I jammed both hands over my mount’s eyes. It bucked, almost hit the water, but straightened out just in time. It had quite exhausted its energy now, and a moment later collapsed into the gentle waves with a tremendous splash. I was surprised to find that it could float. It was heading for the shore, beating its wings furiously to save its life. I felt like Neptune, riding the seahorse.

When the bombylios had almost reached the beach, it collapsed, with a strange croaking sound. It seemed dead. Calmly, I dismounted.

Though my new trousers were soaked, only my dignity was impaired. Here I was, arriving in a modern city, far larger than Kitoozh, in wet clothes, lacking luggage.

Noticing that people in the park above the beach, sitting in the shade of large apple trees, were watching me, I waved gaily at them, continuing my stroll up the beach. They did not respond.

---

Chapter 11: In Limbo

Limbo is all I expected, and more - yet oddly undrawable. (Just as well: I have no paints with me). Despite its magnificent surroundings, the buildings are dull. Each building is enormous, and identical - three storeys high, and some 200 feet square. The outer walls and root are of a translucent white substance, like a sea-shell, but thicker, and fluted. Each building is surrounded by a narrow road, lined with cypresses.

I strolled into one building. Not a soul was there, and it was remarkably clean. The inner walls were timber planks. Along the centre, the length of each storey, ran a long hall with a staircase at each end. Off that hall, on each side, were 21 narrow rooms. Each room was lined with shelves ("bunks" would be too kind a description), 3 layers high, and 13 lengths deep.

Each room thus had shelves for 78 people. As there were 42 rooms on each floor, and 3 floors, that building can accommodate 9828 persons - if my calculation is correct. And there are hundreds - perhaps even thousands - of these monstrous buildings.

The inhabitants of Limbo are a joyless lot, and all wear identical clothing to the suit I purloined at Pelagiboo: a grey jacket and trousers, made of an odd stretchable cloth. Footwear, for all, is white shoes with blue patches on top, and long white laces. (I however, am still shoeless. My soles are tough now, and shoelessness does not bother me.)

Nobody wears a hat, and the city is bathed in constant gentle sunshine. Thus one would expect everybody’s face to be sun-bronzed - but they are all as pale as Londoners in winter. In fact, they have a slight greenish tinge – nicely complementing my more-than-slight bluish tinge.

At the edges of the city, new sleeping-houses are being built. Materials are moved in two-wheeled hand-carts, usually pulled by one Limbot in front and pushed by another behind. All move very slowly, and seldom speak to one another.

Part of the reason for this silence is the multiplicity of languages spoken. I have heard no Batronian at all, but overheard two old men holding a slow philosophical discussion in ancient Greek. I even thought I heard some women speaking English, but when I rushed over and hailed them, they all stared down at the ground. Their features were English, but their manners were not.

There are many children here. They never run around and play: they are very serious – even the youngest. I found one building that was a huge nursery, full of infants, thousands upon thousands of them, all staring dully at the shelf above.

The Statue of God

In the centre of Limbo, in a square just off the esplanade, is the Statue of God: the tall building I saw from the heights above before arriving on bee-back. As befits God, the statue is huge: taller than any tree. It is carved from an enormous block of pale stone, and represents a human figure entirely covered in a priest-basket. Through the face-hole, the eyes are not quite visible.

People hurry past this statue, afraid to look at it. They even cover their eyes as they pass, not daring to risk the anger of this Great Being who caused them to arrive here. Others, such as a few Turkish women, obsequiously lick the little toes. Each time I pass the statue, I give a little wave. God never waves back. I am not upset: I can see that were He to wave too often, His hand would fall off.

The sleeping-house of Hindoos

Needing somewhere to sleep, I decided to claim a shelf in the deserted building that I first visited. On the evening of my arrival, I took a nap. Though the shelf was hard, I was tired, after spending the previous night up a tree, then walking all day. Some hours later I awoke. It was almost dark, but I could see a sea of brown faces around me: Hindoos, I believe. They jabbered at some length, pointing at me, but I pretended to sleep, and eventually they gave up. I slept again.

Later I awoke, feeling uncomfortable. All the shelves around me were covered with the Hindoos. They lay without a sound - not even breathing – as if they were dead.

I have taken to sleeping here, as the Hindoos are very polite; their state of being does not concern me. I have marked the spot by leaving my furry triboldy vest on my shelf, where it forms a pillow.

Worship in Limbo

A few days after my arrival, I saw an enormously long queue, so I walked to its head, to see what the Limbots were queuing for. It was a church. As elsewhere on the Isle of Batrony, it was vertically egg-shaped, surmounted by a five-pointed cross. And as elsewhere, it was tiny, with room for no more than a few dozen people to stand.

Having little else to do, I joined in the queue early in the morning, queued for hours, entered the church around noon, and was squeezed out not much later. It was Easter Sunday, I overheard somebody whisper in Greek. The worshippers were shuffling with imperceptible slowness. As each shuffled out of the church, through the door away from the bay, another shuffled in. Elsewhere on Batrony, the churches have one arched doorway, usually on the eastern side, and a round red window, usually high on the west wall. In Limbo, the church had two doors, no doubt to accommodate the crowd.

Inside, there was such a press of people spiralling around in the church, that I saw nothing except coarse stone walls, grey suits and bent heads. Overhead, a priest in a hanging basket (not unlike those the triboldies sleep in) hummed quietly to himself. There was neither altar nor sermon. Above the priest, in the dome of the ceiling, was a sign, like a number of interwoven Ss. I was most intrigued, and shall visit the church another day, when I am not so busy.

A second visit to the church

The first time I visited the church, it was so crowded that I had seen nothing except the people around me, and the sign on the ceiling which puzzled me. Thus I returned to the church. Not a soul was there, it seemed at first. But when I looked up at the S-shaped sign on the ceiling, I saw a priest up there, in tomato-red habits, suspended in the basket. He seemed to be poking at the plaster of the sign.

"Hello!" I cried, in several different languages, and he replied in Batronian. He is Father Cristoforu, and is by far the most friendly person I have encountered here. He jumped down from the basket, and explained that the sign is a plan of the church, with a diagram showing the route to be walked, so that each worshipper might spend the maximum time inside the church, following a maze-like route, without impeding the progress of others.

The church was unusually busy yesterday, he told me, because it was Easter Sunday, and some of those who wished to curry favour with the authorities had decided it would be prudent to visit. "But it will do them no good!" he said, laughing. "The authorities never come to the Batronian church."

I asked Father Cristoforu why he was there – thinking it odd that a priest should be in Limbo. He surprised me by saying cheerfully that the Patrakond had sent him.

"So you are not dead?" I asked, puzzled.

"Of course I am not dead! Do I look dead? Am I green? Not like the sad people in this city. " He laughed again, and jumped up and down a few times to prove it. He was serving there for seven years, he told me, and had one year to go. He had been born in Kitoozh, and hoped to return to a Mostelunio there.

"I am here to give succour to dead Batronians," he told me, "but in six years I have never seen one yet. You are the first person to speak my language." Upon which statement he blew a shqipdelunio, and performed a few cartwheels.

Here was a man with nonsense in his heart: I warmed to him immediately. Unusually for a Kitoozheno, his body seems perfect: one head, two hands, each with four fingers and a thumb, and two legs. He has agreed to show me some of the places of interest here. And when I lamented to him the loss of my drawing gear, he promised to find me at least a pencil and paper. He normally performs a midnight mass, but on Wednesday (being the Devil’s day) there is no such mass – so the night after next we are ti meet at the Statue of God, and explore the night life of Limbo.

Daily routine in Limbo

Each morning at sunrise, everybody wakes, gazes wearily upwards, and climbs out of their shelf. Nobody undresses for bed; we wear the same grey suit day and night. Slowly we shuffle out of our room, waiting patiently to leave the building. The central hall is too small for everybody to leave at once, and the doors at each end too narrow. It took me half an hour this morning to exit. Tomorrow I shall sleep in.

Once out of the building, we all trudge slowly down the street towards the bay. The journey should take only a few minutes, but it takes perhaps an hour, due to the snaily crowds.

The bayside esplanade is lined with communal buildings: dining-halls, bath-houses, theatres, and offices. Dining-halls are as huge as the sleeping-buildings, and built to the same plan, with long rows of tables instead of the narrow bedrooms. Hardly anybody speaks – and then in whispers.

To eat, one enters a dining-hall. Passing through the door, one is silently handed a small tray bearing an enamel plate and mug. One shuffles slowly in a queue through the central hall, where eventually some tired old woman ladles a dollop of grey stew onto one’s plate, and water into one’s mug. One then enters a side-bay, finds a vacant space at a table, sets the tray down there - and then?

"And then eats?" you guess.

You are wrong! Everybody simply sits and stares at their food. Some sip the water, though I have not yet seen anybody drain a mug. Admittedly the food is worse than at a public school. Perhaps a decent restaurant exists in this city, but I have not yet found it. I seem to be the only one who eats anything. Fortunately, knives and forks are provided - of a white material, more like wood than silver.

After staring at their food for an hour or two, the diners rise, carrying their laden plate and near-full mug, leaving their knives and forks untouched. They shuffle out through the side doors, handing their tray to an attendant just before leaving. The attendant pushes the tray into a small hole in the wall. What happens then I do not know.

Bath-houses

The bath-houses work on much the same principle as the dining-halls. Long queues of people shuffle through the central doors, and slowly remove their grey suits and their white shoes, handing each garment in turn to a separate attendant. Quite naked, yet ignoring the variety of sexes, they step down into long bathtubs. Chest-deep in the water, they shuffle down the length of those tubs, emerging dripping at the other end. They then queue again, waiting for a sequence of attendants to hand them more grey suits and shoes, one garment at a time. By the time they reach the clothes, the water has mostly dripped off them. There is no public entry to the upper floors of the bath-houses, where it seems the clothes are washed.

I entered one of these buildings from curiosity, and found myself in a huge queue. I was unable to escape, and went through that undignified shuffle-bath.

In front of me was a slim black person, whose skin looked so velvety that I longed to stroke his thigh, to find out if it was as soft as it looked. My neighbour must have perceived my hand’s desire. She (revealed as a woman) turned and gazed sadly at me, as if to say "This is no place for fleshly longing." Then she smiled faintly, and briefly held out a hand as if to touch my blueness, but stopped an inch from me. I fell in love with her instantly.

The bath became steadily shallower. When I emerged, an attendant cast an eye over me (I was grateful that he did not laugh at my blue extremities) and looked for a suitably sized jacket, in a huge heap. I was handed an ill-fitting jacket.

"Look here," I said. "This is too small for me. Do you have a larger size?

The attendant (who, like most others, looked Oriental) gave an inscrutable shrug. I then inquired about the availability of clothing in every language of which I know a word or two: English, French, Latin, Italian, Greek (classical and modern), rudimentary Arabic, and finally Batronian. I was not understood. So I left with a jacket that is too tight, trousers too short, but white shoes that weigh almost nothing, and fit me very well.

Public entertainments

What do people do all day in Limbo? They sleep long hours, and they are much occupied with dining and washing – though they never eat, and do not get dirty because they never work. This question puzzled me for a few days, till I found the theatres. On the esplanade is a series of enormous theatres, each of which can seat a thousand or more. Seeing queues stretching into the streets, I joined one, and after several hours was led to a comfortable seat. Strangely, there was no stage: only a flat screen. On this, I saw images of people holding conversations in strange languages. It was as if one could glance into people’s lives and eavesdrop on their discussions. The whole idea made me feel quite uneasy, but it was hours before I could leave.

The same principle – of a window through which various scenes are visible – could be found in a quite different style of theatre. At such theatres, there was one small window for each person. The audience sat – hundreds of them – in front of these small windows. Below each window was an array of coloured buttons, which everybody pressed furiously, seemingly hoping to have some effect on the conversations they were watching.

I queued up for this, and found it not only disquieting, but also tiring. I had no idea which button to press, when, or why. My neighbours seemed to know, but ignored me when I asked for assistance. At least I did not have to queue up to leave. I know now how they spend most of their time: waiting in a queue.

A night expedition

On Wednesday night, soon after it was fully dark, I climbed down from my middle-level shelf, as quietly as possible so as not to disturb my neighbours. Though my elbow struck the ladder, I need not have worried. Nobody stirred. The old man below me lay on his shelf with both eyes wide open, unseeing. He slept as if he were dead.

I tiptoed out, all the way up the long aisle, past 13 rows of shelves, to the centre hall. There I half-expected a night watchman to send me back to bed - but there was nobody. Then I half-expected the doors to be locked from the outside - but they were not. I slid the wooden bolt back, then pulled the door open just enough to let me pass.

I stepped out into the deserted street, in which the moon was casting long shadows. There was not a sound, apart from a faint murmur - perhaps wind in the cypresses. Unlike the rest of the Isle, this bay has no noisy crickets or toads.

For no reason, I was terrified. At any moment, I expected a large police hand to clamp itself on my shoulder and escort me to prison. In this city of perhaps a million souls, I could see nobody else outdoors.

Furtively, I walked down to the bay, peering around the corner of each building in case somebody was lurking there. I scurried over the side streets, anxious not to make a sound, soon reaching the Statue of God. But instead of waiting next to the statue until Cristoforu came, I lurked in the shade of the apple grove.

I looked across the bay, where the moon was rising in the narrow gap between the cliffs around the harbour entrance was dark. As I watched, a shadow moved across the entrance was less dark now, hiding the moon. A few minutes later, the darkness disappeared to the right, and the moon was visible again. Something very large was moving, without a sound.

At last, Father Cristoforu arrived, gaily apologizing for his lateness and garb. He was not wearing his tomato-red habit, only a hair shirt. It would not be the done thing for a priest to be seen at our destination, he said.

"And where is that?" I asked.

"If I told you, you would not believe me," he said, laughing. He led me towards the river mouth, where the beach gave way to rock, and the promenade rose higher. In the moonlight, we had to be careful not to walk over the edge, and plunge into the river far below.

Ahead of us, behind a nearby building, I could make out something high and dark against the sky. As we reached the shade of some cypress trees, Cristoforu seized my arm, stopped me, and peered around the corner.

Now that my eyes had adjusted, and the moon had risen higher, I saw what that darkness was: a ship. An enormous one, but without visible means of propulsion: no masts, no sails, no funnels, no paddles - nor any superstructure visible above the deck. From a hole in its side, a gangplank led down to the promenade - which I now saw was also a wharf. And out of that hold, a long queue of people streamed down the gangplank. Like a trail of ants, the queue led from the ship into the building. We stood quietly, half-hidden under the cypresses.

For a long time we watched, hypnotized by the endless queue emerging from the ship. Perhaps a thousand people passed into the building. There was nobody to show them the way, and nobody uttered a word.

Some of them seemed to be carrying things, though I could not make out what. They were of all races, and wore an astounding variety of clothing, ranging from the voluminous to the skimpy, from the plainest to the most elaborate. But not one of them was wearing a grey suit.

"Nobody has noticed us," Cristoforu whispered. Stepping out from the tree’s shadow, we watched more openly. Finally, consumed with curiosity, we walked boldly towards the doorway. A group of black-skinned children, wearing nothing but brightly coloured feathers, was approaching the door. We joined them, sliding into the queue. They looked at us reproachfully, without a word.

The building turned out to be a clothing store. To my left, grey suits and white shoes were neatly stacked up, almost to the translucent roof. To my right was an enormous jumble of the world’s costumes. All around me, people were removing their clothes and donning the grey suits. They were also trying to work out what to do with the white shoes. Many of them had never seen shoes before, I realized. The black children next to me were standing around in puzzlement, wordlessly examining the shoes. I found a small pair and helped a boy put them on his feet. There are no laces: only a cloth that sticks to itself. The boy acknowledged me with only the faintest smile, but the other black children had noticed, and they all successfully put the shoes on. Nobody said a word.

Looking around for Cristoforu, I found him enthusiastically taking part in this clothing spree. He had flung off his hair shirt, and was prancing around in a strange costume of feathers, shells, and rattling bones, with a bark mask covering his face.

"Isn’t this splendid?" he declared, admitting that he had quite a collection of heathen clothes, which he kept in a box behind his church. When bored, he would dress up in an Eskimo’s furs, or an Indian sari, or a Quangle-Wangle hat. But this costume, which he suspected was from Borneo, was his new favourite.

"I suppose anything is better than a hair shirt," I commented.

"Not at all! It is very comfortable. Please try it!" he urged.

He was right. I tried it on, and found it beautifully soft and smooth. He regretted that I could not keep it, as it belonged to his Mostelunio.

I looked for clothing that an Englishman might wear, but was disappointed to find no frock coats, top hats, or Oxford shoes.

"Naturally," Cristoforu pointed out. "This is Limbo, where the unbaptized arrive. England is a Christian country, where the churches ensure that all are baptized."

By this time, the flow of new inhabitants had ceased, and we were along in the clothing-hall. It had been well-lit, with a row of tiny but very bright candles along the top of each wall. Suddenly, almost every candle went out. Now we were lit only by the moonlight from the translucent roof, and the few candles remaining. Cristoforu noticed my blueness, and began laughing again. "You are the light!" he quoted, pointing at me. He came to me and shook my head vigorously, licking my blue nose. "Delicious!" he pronounced. "The delicate flavour of glow-worms. And what about the rest of you?"

Before I knew it, he had pulled down my trousers (held up only by their natural springiness, without belt or braces) and was admiring the blueness of my central parts. He bent down, and began to lick me.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked.

Begging me not to take it amiss, he explained that this was a traditional friendly greeting between men in Batrony, and invited me to do the same with him. I was reluctant at first, but eventually agreed, to please him. I made an interesting discovery: his body was not as perfect as I had thought, as he had two parallel organs: a smaller one for elimination, and a larger one for generation.

"Perfection!" he snorted. "What is that? The idea that everybody must have exactly the same number of bodily parts? How boring! Us Kitoozhenos have great variety. No matter what type of person you seek, he is sure to be found in Kitoozh. You want a woman with five heads and one finger on each hand? – I know her. Why should the so-called normal shape be considered most desirable?"

I had no clear answer for that, but mentioned that the statue of God had five toes on each foot. That statement turned out to be a mistake; Cristoforu made a great tirade against the sculptors: how dared they presume God’s shape? I could not follow his argument well, as he was using the contra-biphlobotic mode of the language.

But soon Cristoforu climbed down from his hobby-horse, I redonned my drab grey suit, and he led me to the far corner of the clothing-hall. Here was a mountain of things that people had been carrying when they died.

"You wanted drawing equipment," he said. "Behold!"

In no time I found a slim quarto notebook, perfect for keeping this journal and for sketching. From the symbols on the cover, I suspect it is of Japanese manufacture. Then I found a pencil, and even a pen-knife to sharpen it with. Elated, I performed a little dance, bouncing on a heap of clothes. Cristoforu joined in, still wearing his Borneo finery, with his hair shirt tied around his neck.

But now he was in a hurry to go: he had to be back in time to celebrate the dawn mass.

"If nobody comes to your masses, why bother?" I asked.

Cristoforu was horrified. "Sometimes a person does come," he said. "Besides, God will notice."

On leaving, we peered around the door, to make sure nobody was there. We could not see a soul. The ship had disappeared, but on the promenade were many piles of timber and sheets of the fluted translucent walling. So the ship that brought the newly dead had also delivered materials to house them. But where had that ship come from?

"The Other Side," said Cristoforu - and I shivered, too terrified to think more about it.

We sped back around the bay. His church was well to the north, an hour’s fast walk away, and the Statue of God about half that distance. At the statue, we parted, agreeing to meet again in a few days, after I had recorded in this new notebook everything that has happened to me in the month or so since I last had pen and paper – since falling from the hotel at Underednu.

After parting from Cristoforu, I tried to find my sleeping-house. Seven streets north of the statue, then five streets in. Or was it five, then seven? Uncertain, I tried both. But all streets looked the same in the dark. The moon was setting behind the hills at the back of the bay. I should have to wait till morning, and sleep on the beach-side park, hoping that no sea-monsters or wild dead women would attack me,

"At least" (I told myself) "I am inconspicuously dressed. Let them throw me into prison, I declared (under my breath) - let them dare imprison an English gentleman, and the full weight of Her Majesty’s Forces will vanquish them, complotally, utpletesomely and conflobliously."

So saying, I lay on the soft grass under the bounteous apple trees and nodded off.

When I awoke, I was quite wet. It was raining upwards and sideways, from the very grass I lay on. Constant streams of water sprayed over me, from both sides, and from above.

I stumbled up, and ran as fast as I was able toward the nearby beach. There the rain stopped: I was standing on the paved promenade, and dimly I could see that the rain was rising only on the lawn.

I shook my head - partly in disbelief, partly to shake the water from my hair and beard.

A hand clapped me firmly on the shoulder.

It would be the police. I was being arrested for interfering with old clothes, or staying out all night, or sleeping in the park. The prisons here would be unimaginable, and my sentence infinite. I sobbed.

"What’s your trouble, young man?" a deep voice boomed.

"Goodness me!" I exclaimed.

My interlocutor was an elderly man with a reddish-green face and not much ginger hair.

"So you’re the new Englishman, then?" he boomed. "I hope you didn’t arrive here in the same circumstances as I did."

"Possibly not," said I. "Did you glide on the back of a bombylios?"

"I can’t tell you how relieved I am to have intelligent company. Tell me, what school did you go to?"

"I had a governess," I admitted. "I did not go to school."

He touched his collar, and I saw that it was a clerical one.

"The Reverend Jack Onions, Vicar of Borley-Melling at your service. The late, some would say."

He inclined his head, in a churchy sort of way. I have noticed that vicars come in two varieties: the oily, smarmy, whispering type, and the bluff, hearty, no-nonsense type. I slightly prefer the latter. Jack Onions was very much one of these.

"What is a Church of England clergyman doing in Limbo?" I joked. "Do you keep a parish for the unbaptized?"

His face clouded. I had touched a raw nerve.

"This is most unjust!" he thundered. "I lived a virtuous life, committing none but the most venal sins. Yet I am condemned to spend æons here - instead of my rightful destination - simply due to a muddle."

He was quite red in the face, with shouting. I nodded sympathetically. This turned out to be the wrong response. His fury redoubled.

"They have no record of my baptismal papers, they say! No record! Tell me, then, if I were not baptized (or christened, which is the same thing)... Tell me: how did I come to be ordained in the Church of England? Tell me that!"

"I’m sorry," I muttered. "But I cannot tell you that."

"My dear sir, my question was not addressed to you, but to them up there!" He pointed (a little rudely) at a building on the far side of the esplanade.

"The records are in appalling order!" he raged. "Jumblecated, out of dated, languages blabbelated, birthplaces bifurcated..."

A sly old woman approached us, and curtsied (as far as is possible, in a grey suit with trousers) at the Reverend Onions’ feet.

"Get up, woman!" he shouted. "If I’m not baptized, I’m not a churchman."

"But, sir," she wheedled (in a strong Dorkshire accent). "You are such a good man. You were my vicar for years."

"This woman is a disgrace," Onions whispered loudly in my ear. "She admitted she’d never been christened. As a baby, she was sick, and her parents did not bring her to the ceremony. That’s why she is here."

"And why are you here, Mr Onions?" she broke in. "Isn’t this heaven, after all? Oh, the Lord is so kind to us."

"I’ve told you, Mrs Mimble, over and over again. This is not Heaven. It is Limbo."

"Nonsense! It’s heavenly for me. I don’t have to cook, no clothes to be washed, I’m never sick, no drunken husband, lovely fillums to watch, no children to run after..."

"It lacks certain heavenly features. Unless you have made a close study of sacred texts, you would not know, you ignoramus of a woman."

"He’s being rude because he’s cross," Mrs Mimble whispered to me. "But generally he’s a very nice man. He christened all my children, you know. Oh, I do miss them. Now, my Jimmy, my oldest, he’s fifteen now, a big boy, and brave, he’ll be looking after the others since I died last year, shedding a tear for me, I trust, and I do wish I could write to them and let them know I’m well, and my next one was - apart from Ginny who died, bless her soul, as a wee baby - my next one was..."

While she continued to describe her numerous offspring, both dead and alive, the Reverend Onions addressed my other ear. Already, I missed my quiet Hindoos.

Public offices

Jack Onions this morning asked me to go with him to the Office of Reclassification. He wanted me to vouch for him, and also to see for myself how dreadful it is.

We waited in a long and patient queue. During this time, the Reverend Onions exhaustively catalogued his grievances to me. I was amazed: in all that time, he did not repeat one grievance. He has hundreds of them.

Finally, late in the afternoon, we reached the head of the queue. By this time I was quite peckish, but Jack, being dead, had no appetite.

We had been given a card with a number (MDCCXLII), and were instructed to present it to the official at the counter. When, after hours of waiting, we reached the counter, the official glanced at it, tossed it behind him, and told Jack that it was an invalid number (not being divisible by IX – the criterion of the day), and that therefore he would not be interviewed.

"They are always doing this," Jack groaned. "It is their way of being cruel."

The next day we came back and queued again. This time I came well prepared, my pockets full of the juicy apples from the trees in the esplanade park.

While we waited, I inquired as to the manner of his death. "I do not remember it" he snarled. "That is perhaps why I am in the wrong place - whatever place this is." He remembered feeling ill for no particular reason, spending a few days in bed - then nothing, until waking in a shaking hall, holding a tea-cosy, surrounded by hundreds of strangers, all standing, packed so tightly that nobody could fall over. That was the grey ship, a few hours before his arrival here.

Late in the afternoon, we once again reached the counter. On either side of us were more queues, perhaps twenty in all, each devoted to different languages. The sign (in Greek) over our queue showed that this was for speakers of English, Gujarati, Basque, Bamana, Mushkwoshkee, and Annamese.

The official, who looked to me like a Hottentot, asked Jack his business in Greek. Jack was nonplussed, but fortunately I was able to interpret for him. The official refused to acknowledge my existence, but spoke directly to Jack. I whispered the translation to him, he whispered back, and I translated the answer.

The official was cross. "Only the person addressed may answer," he told me in Greek, then said something in an even more foreign tongue - perhaps Gujarati.

Jack therefore repeated my answer, in a travesty of Greek. The official, though he did not acknowledge me, began to answer while Jack was still speaking, toying with a blue string that hung from the ceiling. He had Jack’s file in front of him: a dusty, yellowed cardboard box, tied up with faded pink ribbon. It apparently contained a letter that the bishop of Lancaster had written to Jack in 1827.

Jack complained that the letter was incorrect. Jack wanted to look at "my file" as he put it, but the official snatched it back. "It is not your file, but our file which is about you."

In essence, Jack was pleading that he had in fact been baptized, and therefore should not be in Limbo. The official was replying that their files had no record of Jack’s baptism, therefore he could not leave. All this was said in flat, dull voices. The official was as dead as Jack (judging from their complexions: an identical shade of purplish-green).

The official sighed. "Onions Jack Reverend," he said (this is how they refer to people, in reverse order of their names) "please understand that Limbo is a good place, and that there are many excellent Christians here. I personally was a devout Mormon for the last ten years of my life, but because my parents overlooked my baptism, I have been sent here. Every necessary comfort is available here, and you must not complain. If you wish to do good works for your fellow-deceased, I suggest that you volunteer for a 99-year term in the Official Service. You would wear a cap such as this (the man touched his cap, embroidered with a crest), and spend your time more productively than in complaining. Good day, sir."

"I hate niggers," Jack muttered as we left. "Jumped-up, vulgar, common, and cheap!’

I suggested to Jack that he might offer a pourboire. "Sometimes, in these countries, one must grease the official palm," I said. At first, he was horrified. Later, he was interested, but could not decide on an appropriate gift (let alone obtain it). What would the dead want? I wondered.

A few days later, Jack having decided that his tea-cosy would be appropriate, he returned to the queue and offered it to the official (the same man, who was today speaking English). The reply was, "That would be no use. I have everything I need, and even if I wanted to expedite your case, I could not. Surely you must realize, sir, that this office has no power."

"None at all?"

"Not a whit."

Jack was speechless. He looked around, and gestured at the queues stretching into the distance on either side of us and behind us. "Then why all this?" he asked, seemingly astonished.

"It provides hope," said the smiling Hottentot. "A service for our residents."

"But you have just utterly dashed my hopes!"

"But you, sir, are a chronic complainant. We have seen enough of you, and must make room for new people."

The Hottentot pulled on the blue string hanging from the ceiling behind him. "MMCCLXVIII," he announced.

Before we knew it, a trapdoor had opened in the floor where we were standing, and we tumbled into the darkness below. We landed on something bouncy, and before we had time to stand up found ourselves sliding down a narrow wooden chute, and into the prickly foliage of a cypress tree.

From the ground, a little bruised, I looked around. We were now outside the building. A long queue of people, all clutching cardboard numbers, stared dolefully at us. When our surprise was complete, we picked ourselves up.

"If I cannot go to Heaven, I might as well go to the other place," the Reverend Onions said angrily.

I looked puzzled.

"Hell!" he shouted. "I shall go to Hell!"

"Please!" I said, trying to soothe him. "Please, Reverend. Hell would not accept you. You have led a blameless life."

"I have sinned," he muttered. "I have sinned greatly. I am ashamed to tell you how I have sinned – and, furthermore, how much I enjoyed it. No, it is to Hell with me! Now I shall show them! And how shall I suffer!"

As we walked past the statue of God, the Revered made a very rude gesture. I feared for his future.

A walk by the river

"Come for a walk with me," said Jack.

I was pleased that he seemed to be in a more cheerful mood today. I wanted to tell him about Father Cristoforu, and wondered if the two might become friends – till I remembered that Cristoforu speaks only Batronian, while Jack speaks only English.

We trotted all the way around the esplanade to the river, past the wharf where the grey ships tie up at night, and up a gravelled path along the banks of the river. It was most scenic at first, with overhanging trees, asphodels, and great dragonflies, all reflected in the placid waters. But higher up, the trees disappeared, the river’s roaring became oppressive (as it disappeared into a huge cave), and the sky became hazy.

Higher still, there were no plants at all, the ground vibrated, and the air became filled with sulphurous fumes. It reminded me of Mount Vesuvius.

"Look, Jack!" I exclaimed. "A fumarole ahead." Orange smoke was roaring out of a great jagged hole in the ground.

"It is the Hell Hole," said Jack. "I shall leap in. At the bottom, they say, is Hell."

I entreated him not to jump in. "You will suffocate in the fumes!" I cried. "You will be broken when you fall. You will be cooked in the heat. It is abominable!"

"I am already dead," he observed. "Nothing can hurt me now." Sobbing, he took his tea-cosy from his pocket, and presented it to me. "Remember me with this," he entreated. "In memoriam, the vicar who sinned, who failed to gain admittance to Paradise."

"Please!" I begged again, "Don’t take it to heart so!"

He dashed away from me, towards the belching fumarole. I tried to rush after him, but the fumes and heat became so terrible that I could not follow. Sadly, I watched, as his figure, dimly visible through the smoke, launched itself into the air and disappeared into the hole.

Though sad to see him go, I was not altogether sorry, I confess. His company tires me greatly. Now I can visit Cristoforu, whom I promised to sketch in his wondrous costumes.

Walking back from the barren wasteland into the riverside forest, light rain began to fall, and I put the tea-cosy on my head. It was amazing how much more English I felt.

The Batronian church again

I returned to Cristoforu’s church, sketchbook under my arm. He was delighted to see me again, and shook my head vigorously. I spend a pleasant morning sketching him, and seized this chance to ask about some questions that had been puzzling me. The first related to people who had met violent deaths: those who had limbs severed, for example. I had seen no headless people walking around, for example, and those I had seen in the bath-house had all parts present.

Cristoforu laughed. "You should read your Bible," he said. "It tells us that after death, our bodies will be whole. The shades of our bodies, that is: these are not true bodies that you see here."

A little ashamed at my ignorance, I asked my next question: whether he knew how I might leave Limbo. Not caring to hurt his feelings, I pointed out that I had never intended to stay more than a few weeks. "How will you leave?" I asked.

"I have not thought about it," he said, puzzled. "The same way as I arrived, I suppose."

On a distant hillside, a track had led to a great door in a cliff. His Abogome – with whom he had travelled from Kitoozh, produced a great key and unlocked the door. Inside waited his predecessor, who knew about the rendezvous (via carrier pigeon), and who had escorted him through a series of caves to Limbo, then returned to the Abogome.

On hearing about the great key, my face fell, and the kindly Cristoforu noticed. "There is wind in the caves," he added, "so there must be other exits." When he saw off his predecessor, they had taken a boat up the river, into the cave, and turned right at the first fork. I pressed for further details, but that was all he could remember.

Planning to leave Limbo

I have been busily making drawings of Limbo. These, being the only extant record of this famous city, may raise plenteous funds for me,. Accordingly I rose at dawn today, and walked south around the bay with my drawing-things, picking the odd apple on the way. At the mouth of the river, which has a splendid view in all directions, I improvised an easel from forked sticks, and busily began to work. I had completed six drawings before the sun was too high. A few people walked past, but all ignored me. But as I was packing up to go, somebody clapped me on the back.

"I should have taken your advice," said a voice.

I looked around, astonished. It was the Reverend Onions. He seemed ten years older, and was hobbling a little. A few days ago, he had looked pink - at least in comparison with the other Limbots. Now, his face was grey.

I embraced him warmly, amazed to see him again. "What happened?" I asked. "Did you change your mind, and somehow climb out of that hole?"

"No!" he croaked. "I came back on a ship, last night. I had to stand up in a crowd, for hours and hours. And, once again, I don’t remember a damned thing about how I came to be on the ship."

---

Chapter 12: Departure from Limbo

Having seen enough of Limbo, I must move on to other parts of the Isle of Batrony. It is May (I guess) and to meet Husey Hunt in August in Switzerland, as planned, I shall have to leave the Isle within a month or two.

When I told Jack Onions that I was planning to leave, he begged to accompany me. I was reluctant: would I get into trouble for helping an inhabitant to leave? But though he frequently irritates me (every few minutes) I can at least hold a conversation with him. And it might be useful to leave with a companion - for example, if pursued by an angry bombylios, one of us might distract it, while the other might run for help.

I warned him of the horrors of Batrony (without mentioning my own experiences in Zemmery, or with the Triboldies) but that did not deter him in the slightest. He said he had not proselytised enough, and his future role would be to persuade unbelievers to Anglicanism. I warned him that it would be difficult if he knew no Batronian, but he reminded me that the Catholics manage perfectly well with Latin, which nobody understands.

As I was unable to deter him, I agreed that he could accompany me – but I warned him that, with our different purposes, we should need to part company in due course.

The next day, at dawn, we set out. I carried no baggage: only my notebook, pen-knife, and pencil, all wrapped up in Jack’s tea-cosy, tucked inside my suit.

At the wharf, I borrowed one of the small boats I have noticed tied up there. Nobody stopped us. We rowed up the gentle river, past the watercress, and after an hour or two entered the great cave where the river flows from underground.

In the cave, the river seemed to be hastening us on – almost flowing in the opposite direction. How was this possible? Jack was unhappy; he suspected that the river was going down to the Nether Regions. I did not mind that he complained almost the whole time: when he stopped for a minute or two, the glow-worms lit up, reminding me of my blueness, and too much of the Zemmery Fidd.

Then we heard a great rumbling sound, filling the whole tunnel.

"The hounds of doom," Jack cried.

The sound became louder, filling the entire tunnel, and our ears: a deep, booming rumble. It also became more difficult to row. The waves were flowing against us once more. Jack was even unhappier about this: the prospect of being washed back to the Limbo he hates so much. Ahead of us, in this black tunnel, an even blacker shape appeared. Willy-nilly, we were going backwards in the river. In fact, we were actually going forwards, because (being English) we were rowing backwards.

The black shape, whatever its nature, was looming over us. It was one of those ships with no sails, from which the dead souls had disembarked. So they come through the river, as well as through the harbour mouth.

"Do you think we might be on the Styx?" I asked Jack.

He howled in dismay. The coldness of the ship was now pressing on us, like a steady icy wind. It seemed that our tiny craft would be sunk by the monstrous ship.

I made out a small indentation in the river, just to our left. Frantically, I rowed into it - backwards of course - but at the same time forwards. We were just in time: the huge black bulk thundered past. It had neither a light, nor any sound of a voice.

"Perhaps this is the fork in the river," I said - but Jack did not hear me, for the deafening rumble. A violent wave washed our boat aground.

At last the ship passed. The tunnel still echoed, but not so loudly. From above, a thin stream of water trickled onto my trousers. In the dim light of my nose, I saw that the texture of the tunnel wall changed markedly above us. Behind us and ahead of us were rocky outcrops, even stalactites. But to our left, the wall looked more like a tightly-packed wad of old clothes. Silently, we examined this strange surface.

"My missing sock!" Jack exclaimed. "Edward, bring your nose here!" He pulled at a rock that resembled a sock. "The Saint Aidan’s coat of arms! I’d know it anywhere. The pig and the scissors! Mrs Mimble used to knit those socks by the dozen. For everybody else they were grey, but for me she knitted a white pair. Years ago, one went missing. And here it is!" He tugged at it, without success.

"Isn’t the other now missing?" I asked, but he ignored me. Using my nose, I examined the wall more closely. It looked like a lot of old socks, with the occasional silk stockings and even the odd shoe mixed in. They were as hard as rock, however.

"I must remove this sock!" Jack declared. "Do you happen to have at hand a thing for taking stones out of horses’ hooves, my man?"

"I’m sure there are more important things..." I began.

"Nonsense!" said Jack. "I must have this. My very life depends on it."

Instead of asking "Which life?" I made a suggestion. "Perhaps if you used that fork over there...."

"The river fork?" Jack boomed. "I hope you’re not making a pun. I despise puns."

"It cannot be a pun," I pointed out, "because it is the same in both Latin and Greek."

Mollified, he strode back to the river, picked up the heavy fork, and began lurching at the wall of socks, trying to lever his sock away from the rest. Though the fork was long and damp, it had no effect, except (perhaps) to marginally increase the trickle of water that rained down on us.

Finally, "I am doomed to failure!" he declared. Tossing the fork in the air, he angrily kicked at the wall.

Almost immediately, a sock popped off. The trickle increased. This caused a few more socks to fall out, and the trickle to increase more. Jack stood in front of it, not seeming to notice that he was being drenched. (One advantage of the deceased state.) Next, the top of the wall began to crumble. Socks began raining down, along with the odd trouser-leg and scissor.

"Jump back!" I cried - but too late. A mountain of wet socks crashed down, and a torrent of water poured forth. I clung to a stalactite for all I was worth, hoping it too wouldn’t give way. Jack had disappeared under the socks: it would be the end of him. Despite his annoying habits, I lamented the loss of his company.

The socks, and like objects, were being washed beyond the tiny inlet, filling the subterranean river.

Almost as suddenly as it had begun, the wall of water stopped. Instead of coming up to my neck, it was now below my knees. Within a minute, it was down to my ankles. Surrounded by socks, I flung those wet and smelly objects away from my person.

"Jack!" I mourned aloud.

In front of me, a heap of bedraggled socks was stirring. A gaunt head emerged.

"What is it?" he snapped. "I certainly hope you recovered my white sock with St Aidan’s coat of arms."

"You’re alive!" I cried.

"I’m dead!" he snapped. "Had I been alive when that happened, I certainly shouldn’t be now. This is your fault, do you realize?"

I wasn’t listening to my tiresome companion. Instead, I was looking into the cavern that the wall of socks had hidden. Beyond a rather narrow constriction, a large cavern lay. In the bottom of this, a rivulet ran. Its banks were littered with old socks - plus the occasional gumboot, glove, ear-ring, and garter.

"Guillaume’s fork!" I exclaimed.

"Naturally," said Jack. "I found it for you - so the least you could have done was to save my special sock."

Walking on socks, we made our way up the rivulet. The banks, though rocky, were soft with socks, and seldom did we have to venture into the stream itself.

For hours we followed that stream, rising higher and higher. At one point, it forked again. The socks by now were far behind us. Which path should we take? One had a wind; the other did not. Remembering Cristoforu’s advice, I convinced Jack to take the windy path: where air entered, we could leave. Occasionally the scent of spring flowers wafted through the cavern. At other times, a foul animalish smell displaced it. I considered that as the sockage had closed the fork of the river for years, a fœtid smell was perhaps not unexpected, but Jack worried that some monster might be lurking ahead of us. He fancied he heard growling sounds. I heard nothing but wind.

"We late ones have much better hearing than you livers," he claimed. "We are not disturbed by the sound of our own breathing, our rumbling stomachs, or the beating of our hearts."

"But since you are safely dead, why are you afraid of this putative monster?" I asked.

"Fool!" he thundered. "Don’t you know by now that fear increases after death? That in itself is a punishment."

After endless hours of climbing, the rivulet widened, flattened, and stilled. The cavern became broader and higher, lit by glow-worms so far above us that not even Jack’s complaints bothered them. The cavern was so wide that we could scarcely see the other side.

"The stream has become a pond," Jack declared.

"Or a swamp," I said, thinking about the source of the animal smell - now stronger than ever. I peered into the murk and saw what seemed to be a huge footprint, with claw-marks on the end of its four toes. A coincidence, I thought. But a yard behind it were several others.

"Jack!" I said. "What do you make of these?"

A roaring sound came from somewhere behind me. I wheeled around: it was Jack. He stood strangely, with one leg in the air.

"I’m caught in something damn’d odd!" he called.

I rushed over to him. His leg seemed to be trapped in a kind of rope harness. It seemed to be shaking a little, almost like a snare. As I tried to free him, a little worried about the animal sounds belching from the far side of the swamp, I felt a jerk at my feet. They were no longer touching the ground. Now I was ten feet aloft. There was no question of jumping down.

"I wonder if the monster can reach us here." Jack whimpered.

"Jack, the monster is you," I assured him.

"Footprints, roaring, smelly breath - what more proof do you need? And it has trapped us in this snare."

Though Jack may have been trapped, I was not. My feet were secure on a thick rope, and my hands grasped an equally thick vertical rope.

At that moment, from above us, the smell of spring flowers came down. With a great jerk, we rose higher - perhaps ten feet more.

Slowly we rose higher and higher above the underground swamp. We seemed to be moving up a chimney. Sometimes it was vertical, sometimes more horizontal; both were equally uncomfortable. At a horizontal moment, as I was being dragged sideways across a cold, wet rock, I fancied I heard voices.

"Look up!" said Jack. "Starlight! We are almost free!"

"We are far from free," I pointed out, "trussed up in this net. And I suspect those stars of yours are glow-worms."

I could definitely hear voices now: they spoke in a harsh way, strangely glotted, like people whose tongues curl down instead of up. I had heard that language before: my blood ran cold.

A moment later, triboldies jumped into the cavern, jabbering in their incomprehensible tongue. They carried bright torches, which almost blinded me. Half a dozen of them dragged me out of the cave, others seized Jack, and in no time we were out in the starlight, trussed up like a pair of chickens for market.

"Flibzeboksh!" I exclaimed, in my best Triboldian. They laughed, not understanding.

"Will they eat us?" Jack asked.

I was able to assure him, from what Father Cristoforu had told me, that a dead person could survive being eaten. "But triboldies prefer liquorice. You and I may not be sweet enough."

Jack snorted.

The triboldies greatly appreciated his snort, repeating it in a kind of snortable chant, tapping out a rhythm with their hairy fists on Jack’s head.

We were on a wild hillside. The triboldies squatted beside a fire, laughing at nothing, as usual. A pair of cinquii, attached to long ropes, grazed nearby. I realized that we had been fished out of the cavern on those ropes.

When day broke, the Triboldies went to sleep around the embers of their fire, after checking on Jack and myself. They even brought us some lumps of liquorice. Jack refused his, on principle (not that he ever ate) but I happily ate my lump – not having eaten since breakfast yesterday – and then only cold grey stew.

All day we sat under that tree, while the Triboldies slept. Near sunset they woke, cooked a liquorice pie, and brought us some of the burnt edges. I was re-attuned to their tongue by now, and began to understand what they were saying.

They had been fishing in the ancient cavern, it turned out, in the hope of finding some long-lost monster which was sacred to them. Instead, they had only found us, and were most disappointed. The two of us, roped together, were flung over the sides of a cinquus, each counterbalancing the other.

As we rode through the night, the Triboldies discussed their plans for us. Having decided we were inedible, they were taking us to a market, at a town called Eggless, to see what they could sell us for. Fortunately, perhaps due to my harsh experience of the previous night, my skin was not shining brightly, and they gave no sign of having noticed my potential as a lamp. But if, at the market, others of their kind recognized me, I might be punished and re-enslaved. I shuddered at the thought: to escape from their hairy hands, only to be caught again like a fish.

By daybreak, we found ourselves on a road crowded with people heading for Eggless. Many had donkeys laden with splizzle-sticks, splaunching-stones, oblariums, and wicker jugs. The poorer peasants, barefooted, carried their loads upon their backs. They ran off the road at our party’s approach: a dozen wild-looking triboldies on several cinquii - and two strange dangling lumps.

The market was a maze of tiny stalls, built from spiders’ webs, birds’ nests, knitted dirt, and such-like (but not socks). An old woman had a stall, where she was selling china pots. The triboldies had the cinquii kick these into a thousand pieces. Dismounting, they tossed the woman away, and laid myself and Jack on the ground. The woman, who (we now saw) had also been made of china, lay in smithereens around us.

Jack lay still at my side, not moving a muscle. As he does not deign to breathe, this tactic was easy for him.

An old woman stopped to inspect us: a potential buyer. Stepping over me, she studied Jack, perhaps trying to work out if he carried enough meat to feed her family.

"It’s dead!" she shouted. "Scoundrels! Why should you expect anybody to buy this?"

"She’s right!" said an old man, hearing the commotion. "It’s been dead a long time, too - look how green it is." He put his hand over Jack’s mouth for a minute. "No breath!" he exclaimed.

A triboldy whispered something to him, and he angrily retorted "No useful parts at all."

His gaze turned to me. "This one’s dead too! Look, its face is blue."

"Long dead!" said the woman.

"I’m alive," I said, in reasonable Batronian. They all ignored me. The old woman and the old man walked away, in high dudgeon. The triboldies anxiously conferred. Two came over to Jack and kicked him. He didn’t stir.

"Jack!" I whispered.

Perhaps he really is dead, I thought. Perhaps exposure to this air of reality - so unlike Limbo - has returned him to the corpsical state.

The triboldies dragged him off, having decided to bury him. Two of their number stayed behind, to sell me. Though nobody was interested in buying me, an old man bought the broken china woman. It seemed that he wanted her as a scarecrow. The triboldy guarding me tried to convince him that I would make a scarier-crow, but to no avail. Finally, I fell asleep.

Hours later, I woke again. It seemed to be around midday now. The sun was beating down mercilessly, and a group of women was standing around me. One, her back turned to me, was arguing with the two remaining triboldies. She sounded young and harsh. She was bargaining for me!

"One doubloon, and not an obol more!" she declared.

The triboldies muttered something I did not understand. But they must have been insisting on their price. The woman grasped her companion by the sleeve, and walked away. The triboldies, after exchanging angular nods, ran after her. Would they accept her price? What would the two women do with me?

A terrible thought ran through my brain. A shudder ran through my being. Not that again, surely, please God!

I breathed again. The triboldies did not accept such a low bid. "I salute you for that!" I told them. They stared strangely at me.

Late in the afternoon, an old man came to inspect me. Bent over double, with a small tree growing on his back, he poked at my teeth. He tried to inspect my tongue, but I spat at him. Though this action was a trifle ungentlemanly, it was the only way I could conceive of to express my disgust.

Unexpectedly, he pinched me on the arm. "Stop!" I shouted. He beamed. Turning to the triboldies, he dropped his face down low. "Not loud enough!" he commented, then muttered something I did not hear.

"You want him for what?" exclaimed one of the salesmen, in clear Batronian.

The old man muttered again. The branches of his tree waved a little in the breeze. I wondered if this could be a peach tree. Or was it an apricot? One root, I saw, disappeared beneath his trousers, and reappeared around his ankle. The leaves sheltered him well from the afternoon sun.

"No!" shouted my triboldy to the old man. "We shall not sell him as a dog. He will be a useful slave, not a worthless yapster."

It turned out that the old man’s dog had died, and he thought that I might be more effective than the dog at protecting his personal tree from nest-building birds.

I was grateful that the triboldies refused to let me be either a dog, or a bored woman’s plaything. Much relieved, I fell asleep again.

When I awoke, twilight had descended. I heard some people arguing: my triboldies, and two hooded women. I recognized the voice of one: she who had tried to buy me earlier. The triboldies, tired of playing shop-keepers, accepted her new bid. The transaction took place. I was bought for two ducats, and a small yellow stone. My sellers, pocketing the former, and tossing the latter into the air, rushed away into the dusk.

Untied for the first time in a day or two, I rubbed my limbs.

My younger buyer, whom I could scarcely see, took my arm and laughed. "Have you forgotten me, Ellelear?" she asked.

"First, he bought you, then you bought him," said the older woman.

"No!" said Mazinta. "He bought himself!" Fumbling in the depths of her cloak, she produced my money-bag, and handed it to me. Though it had lost some weight in its travels, it still bore the proud stamp of Messrs Binkley and Yunklum, of Barking.

"Frabjosity!" I cried, taking Mazinta by both hands and whirling her around the dusty market. "Excelluminous! Perspicuniance! Bellemaboonious!"

"Yes," she said simply (in English), and introduced me to her aunt Jobiska.

---

Chapter 13: Eggless and beyond

At the aunt’s smoky cottage, at the edge of Eggless, we all slept in the attic, under the thatch, to keep warm, accompanied by a variety of furred and feathered animals. Though not dignified for an Englishman, it was certainly quaint.

I discussed with Mazinta her luck at finding me. "That was no luck," she declared, telling me that after hearing from her cousin Darius that I was in Limbo, she had decided to visit her aunt at Eggless, the first town visited by most people who had just left Limbo. I could not believe there were any leavers, so difficult had been my exit.

She laughed. "Most people just climb over the hill," she said – though admitting it was steep and a little dangerous. Seeing my skepticism, she adduced some evidence.

"The grey suits," she said. "Did you see that stall of them at the market yesterday?"

I did not, but I had noticed a few people wearing grey suits, without making the connection with Limbo.

"People here like the grey suits," she added. "They are warm and comfortable. But the people who leave Limbo want to be rid of them as quickly as possible. Like you, I see."

She is quite right. I am leaving the grey suit behind – but have decided to keep the white shoes, which are very comfortable.

"So the dead people just walk out?" I asked, skeptical again.

"Not a lot of them," said Aunt Jobiska, turning up. "A few each week – though more in spring. Their spirits become restless then."

"And what do they do then?" I asked.

Jobiska shrugged. "They don’t stay here. Many go to Pelagiboo and farm liquorice."

I remembered the black woman and Arabian-looking men I had seen after meeting the ten basketed priests. So they left a life of dull luxury in Limbo, to become poor farmers on the heights above. Would I have done the same?

In a small stable behind Aunt Jobiska’s cottage was my faithful cinquus, and on its back were my boxes - everything I’d left behind when I fell from the inn at Underednu. And I still have my notebook from Limbo, though I lost the pencil and pen-knife in the scramble through the caves.

"Everything is intact," Mazinta announced proudly.

Frabblejoy and froobiscitum! My painting things! I took them out, made a lightning sketch of the cinquus in the stable, and handed it to Aunt Jobiska. She bowed deeply, and carried it indoors.

I was pleased to see my things – but there was one important omission. I summoned my guide.

"The nupiter piffkin!" I wailed. "My sweet little bird. What has become of it?"

She laughed heartlessly. "Your little bird grew into a monster. When we found you were missing, we could only just pull it through the doorway of your room. The landlord dug a big hole in the hill above the inn, and buried it there. But even in the hole, the bird was growing. I could hear the rock creaking, and left immediately, to search for you."

Towards a curious town

Now we are heading for a "curious town" as Mazinta puts it; she would tell me no more, saying that I wouldn’t believe her if she told me, and I’d have to see it with my own eyes. After the curious town, our next destination is the glorious Bay of Gurtle – the only peaceful waters in the whole of Batrony, with the quaint ports of Coromandel and –––– .

"What was that last town, again?" I asked.

"––––," Mazinta repeated, with a slight intake of breath. "A very quiet name.’

I dimly recalled reading about this town in some novels, which begin with a sentence along the lines of "It was a sunny morning in May of 1854 when I set out for the town of ––––."

"The Bay of Gurtle has the sunniest climate in Batrony," Aunt Jobiska said. "But some shady people."

We farewelled Jobiska, and set off. "Which way to Gurtle?" I asked my guide. "East!" she said, pointing to the morning sun. "To the crossroads, then we turn right."

As we approached the crossroads, an unruly crowd was there. Boys were throwing stones and jeering. Above their noise, a deep voice boomed. "I am the way and the life."

"Oh, no!" I said to myself.

"Greetings, my good sir!" boomed Jack Onions, still wearing the grey costume of Limbo. "You are late, as usual."

He brushed at a few bruises on his cheex and shiny head. The stone-throwers had paused in amazement.

"I shall be your guide!" he boomed.

"I’m afraid I already have a guide," I pointed out, gesturing to Mazinta behind me on the cinquusback.

"Noooooooo!" he shouted. "Not that manner of guide. (Is that a female? Tut tut.) Nooooooooooo, a spiritual guide! I shall go forth with you, and converticate the heathens."

"I’m sorry about this," I whispered to Mazinta. "I thought he was dead."

The stone-throwing began again.

"They are stoning him because he is wearing a dead man’s suit," said Mazinta. "If they knew he was a priest, they would not. You should give him that red habit."

She meant the tomato-red dress I had taken from the innkeeper’s wife at Qyp, and that Mazinta had insisted on keeping, to avoid bad luck. But now bad luck himself had arrived! I’d much sooner have the giddy Cristoforu as a companion.

When we left the town, the children came no further. We stopped in a clump of bushes. Mazinta found the tomato-red habit and presented it to Jack. He was not grateful.

"Papist garb!’ he thundered. "Since I am dead, I shall wear a dead man’s suit. And where is my vestibule? What do you take me for, asking me to change my clothes in public, in the presence of a female?"

"Very well," I said, a little annoyed. "Then be stoned."

I returned his tea-cosy, suggesting he might wear it as a helmet. He tossed it into a bush, but retrieved it when he thought I wasn’t looking.

"I could ride your horse," he suggested. "None would dare approach me on such a steed. Five legs!" He roared with laughter.

"I’m sorry," I told him, "but this steed can carry only two."

"Pshaw!" he roared. "I need no five-legged horse. The late Jack Onions can walk as well as any man. Let us follow the light of Christ! I shall lead the way!"

And he did – chattering and complaining the whole time.

"Does he ever stop?" Mazinta asked. Luckily, she knows very little English.

"No!" I said ruefully.

Whenever Jack Onions sees Batronians, he feels impelled to harangue them. If his intended audience is women, they flee. If one or two men, they pretend to ignore him. If about three or more men, he is stoned.

"Stone me as you will!" he shouted. "A dead man feels no pain!"

But today he was becoming somewhat dented about the skull. Eventually he noticed this.

At a tiny village, we passed a carpenter’s workshop, with an example of the man’s workmanship displayed at the front: a miniature house, all made of wood, painted white and green. It was the sort of house that young children might play in, hardly bigger than a priest-basket.

"This shall be my church!" Jack announced, embracing it. "They may stone a dead man, but they would never dare stone the house of the Lord."

I tried to tell him that churches here take the shape of half an egg.

"I know that, of course!" he roared, telling me that every Sunday in Limbo he had religiously attended one – even though the priest was a lunatic. "But fiddlestix to the orthodocks church. I am C of E, and this could be an English church, if only it had a steeple and a stained-glass window."

Not wanting to see him stoned, I agreed to pay for the toy house. The carpenter was reluctant to sell, so I had to offer half a ducat. Then Jack insisted on a steeple and a stained-glass window being added. Of course there is no Batronian word for stained-glass window, and my drawing mystified the poor carpenter. So while he was making a steeple I took out my paints, and painted a stained-glass window on one end of the tiny church. I drew loaves and fishes, distributed by two hands, with the Sea of Galilee in the background. I was quite pleased with the effect, though Jack criticized its lack of realism.

One advantage of a painted window, I realized as I watched the paint dry, was that it could not be broken by stones. Had I a stone myself, I’d have been sorely tempted to throw it at him.

When night fell, and the tiny house was still not yet a church, we repaired to the local inn and stayed there the night. It is most unpleasant. I celebrated my displeasure by not discovering the name of the village, nor asking to see the Murgatroyd.

A village whose name was not worth discovering

On our return to the carpentry workshop, the church was finished, with the newly added spire forming a head-space for Jack. A round hole in the spire (where a clock might be) allows him to see where he is going. As the church is much heavier than a priest-basket, the carpenter has thoughtfully added hand-grips on the inside, and a pair of white wheels at the back. The wheels look like bone: perhaps made from the spinal discs of some gigantic animal. They roll well enough, too – at least, on hard ground.

Jack ducked in through the side door, and announced "I shall lead the way" - fortunately sounding muffled.

The path was smooth, and the church’s little bony wheels kept rolling along merrily. Nor were we bothered by crowds: on catching sight of a self-propelled church that talked in a loud voice, everybody fled.

Every time I tried to converse quietly with my guide, asking topographical questions such as "Perchance a nupiter piffkin?" Jack Onions shouted "What was that? You should be asking my advice."

"How can we get rid of him?" Mazinta whispered to me.

"What was that?" Jack Onions demanded.

"Impious talk," I answered. "You would be shocked."

"Confess!" he boomed. "I hope no sinful acts are being planned."

I wondered if there might be some police, who could arrest escapees from Limbo, and send them back.

"I’ve never heard of any," Mazinta whispered.

Just as well, I thought, realizing that I was one. I held my hand in front of my mouth to check that I was breathing. Fortunately, I had not died without noticing it.

In front of us we now saw a range of hills. The road wound up ahead of us, curling left and right, too tired to be steep. At the foot of the hills were a village and a small stream. In the stream, a dozen women, all in red dresses, were bending over, picking something from the water.

Not raspberries! I prayed.

Jack Onions had seen the women too. On a smooth downhill slope, he sped ahead of us, to try and convert the women to Anglicanism.

"Here’s our chance," I whispered to Mazinta, pointing to a road that led off to the right, beside the stream.

Jack was already with the women, who were standing up and throwing small red things at him. His white church was becoming pink. His voice boomed out "Yea, verily." Quietly we turned on to the riverbank path. "The colour of sin!" Jack shouted, behind us.

The path soon led to a dead end, but Mazinta reminded me that a cinquus is very good at climbing hills, in land far too rough for a wheeled church. So we crossed the shallow stream and set off uphill, at an angle far from the main road.

When we reached the top of the hill (only a few hundred feet high) we should be able to see the road again, I thought, not worried. About two thirds of the way up the hill, we entered a grove of beech-like trees, and could see Jack still haranguing the women. They were ignoring him, back at their task of netting those accursed berries.

"He won’t find us now," I said, as we entered the beech grove.

"He will try!" Mazinta predicted.

We soon reached the top of the hill. Though the other side had been mainly grassed, this side seemed to be all forested. We needed to turn left (north), somehow find the road again, and get well ahead of Jack. But the trees were smaller on the eastern side, and closer together. Our progress was slow, impeded by low-hanging branches. This had not been such a good idea.

Black creepers, as thick as my arm, were hanging down. Remembering my escape from the triboldies, I wondered if we were in the same area.

"Do you know of the triboldies?" I asked my guide.

"Evil bandits!" she exclaimed. "Robbers and murderers.... Have you seen one?"

"I met them when I was lost," I told her, deciding to say no more, in case one admission led to another. She had already asked me several times why I had left the inn at Underednu so early in the morning; I made excuses about telling her later. I did not want to tell her the truth, for fear of seeming stupid, but I could not face the bother of constructing a lie.

Finally in that forest, we gave up trying to go north, but tried to retrace our steps back to the hilltop we had crossed, and decided to head more southerly.

That was successful, to an extent. The ground was rockier, and the trees further apart, with none of those black-armed creepers. We went down a good distance, but the forest was everywhere. We crossed several small streams, with muddy banx impressed by the paws of small animals (at least, I hoped they were small), and finally came to a stop in a tiny clearing.

"We are utterly lost," I said.

"Listen!" said Mazinta.

At first, I could hear only the buzzing of bees in the afternoon light.

"Again!" she exclaimed.

This time, I heard it – a faint booming sound in the distance, to our left.

"Repent, for the day of judgement is nigh!"

We both groaned – but we had no alternative but to reply.

"Hallelujah!"I shouted.

"Wherefore art thou?" Jack Onions called back.

I wanted to reply "If I knew, I wouldn’t be saying so," – but that is not the kind of thing that’s terribly shoutable. Nor could I think how King James might have expressed that sentiment.

The cinquus, not an entirely stupid animal, decided to walk towards its saviour. We brushed through some trees, thumped over some sonorous rocks, squelched across a boglet, and at last reached the road again. It curved down the hill in a picturesque woodland scene, with large ferns overhead. Just around the corner I saw a pink steeple.

"What have you been doing?" said Jack crossly. "I’ve been waiting and waiting for you."

I had told him in Limbo of my interest in birds, so I now had a suitable excuse. "I spied a spangle-spotted winglewags," I told him. That was all I needed to say.

The steeple snorted loudly. Jack does not believe that birds have souls – not realizing that he is one himself. He greatly resembles a dilberry duck.

And so we continued on our way – a little scratched, and not a little annoyed with one another’s company. Mazinta was sulking: she’d have preferred to starve in the forest rather than hear Jack again.

The forest stopped suddenly we were at the edge of a grassy plain. Here, by a small brook, we are camped, feasting on black bread and green cheese that we bought in the morning, and drinking pure water from the brook. Jack has become even less tolerable. My guide and I laid the canvas over our steed and lay underneath it, as we had done on the Gromboolian Plain. Jack did not come out of his church: he needs to pray, he said. He will pray all night.

"Pray do it silently," I enjoined.

"I am praying for the red habit," he said. "It is cold in here, and if you would care to paint a white cross on it, it would be more suitable for the C of E."

We woke at sunrise, to realize how deserted this road was. We had seen nobody since the red-dressed women at the village on the western side of the hill. Batrony is certainly an empty country, in parts. A mile or two down the gentle slope, we could see a few roofs: probably a village. Could this be the extraordinary town that Jobiska had recommended?

We breakfasted on the remains of the bread and cheese, folded our canvas, put it back in the saddlebag, and made ready to leave.

"No you don’t!" roared Jack.

He hadn’t said a word all morning.

"What’s up?" I asked him, through his steeple.

"It is Sunday," he replied. "None shall work, nor travel. I have been preparing a sermon to be delivered at 8 o’clock, and a full service at 11."

"How on earth can you know what day of the week it is?" I asked, puzzled. I have long lost track of the day – let alone the month. (Is it May? Or June?)

"You forget!" he said sternly, emerging from his church, resplendent in the red habit with its new white cross. "I have just spent my third night out of that accursed Limbo. We left on Thursday, four days after the last service I attended in that egg of a church."

I was astounded at his arithmetic. He was probably right – if Cristoforu has not lost track of the days, after six years there. But what a way to spend his time, counting days. No wonder he was dead!

I was thinking very quickly. I could not believe how quickly my thoughts were moving, this beautiful Sunday morning.

"But what a pity it would be," I wheedled, "if such a splendid sermon were delivered to only the two of us. Wouldn’t it be more holy if we could round up some benighted Christians from that village over there, bring them back to this holy spot, and you could deliver the sermon to them?"

(My plan, of course, was to go to the village and not return.)

"A splendid idea," said Jack, clapping his hands loudly on the insides of the church. "Better still, I shall go to them myself - just as Our Saviour went humbly to the multitudes."

So we all set off again. Once more the path led downhill and was smooth. Jack was far ahead of us. A cinquus is a slow-moving creature, particularly when its rider wants it to be.

"Perhaps we’ll have a chance to lose him at this village," I said hopefully.

"Perhaps he’ll be stoned to death," Mazinta rejoined, just as hopefully.

I reminded her that he was already dead. The saying "How invincible are the dead" came to my lips. I now knew it to be true - unfortunately.

On the road ahead of us, a man appeared, walking beside a tiny cinquus. When he saw a small pink church walking towards him, he panicked, and dashed into the bushes. We stopped. Jack shouted some homilies at the terrified man, who slunk further into the bushes. Jack pursued him; I could see only the back door of the church – which is designed to travel steeple-first, with my loaves and fishes window painted on the front. Jack’s main peephole is above that window.

"Look!" Mazinta whispered, grasping my arm. She pointed to our right: a narrow path led up a slight hill, and disappeared into some dry-looking shrubs.

Instantly, we urged the cinquus up that narrow path. Jack was still sermonizing at the cornered man. Perhaps he was practising for his 8 o’clock session. We nipped up that path in no time. A cinquus can be a fast-moving creature, when it must escape from a bore.

A minute later, we were over the crest of the small hill, and were astonished.

Behind us we had left a lush valley, with shady trees scattered among thick green grass, with sheep grazing contentedly here and there. But in front of us, I saw a barren valley. Everything was rock, with hardly a blade of grass. Yet on the far side of the valley, perhaps five miles distant, something gleamed, brilliant orange in the morning sunlight.

We sped along the path – a rough and narrow one – too rough and narrow, I hoped, for Jack to catch up.

As we neared the shining apparition, its nature became clear. It was a small city, which appeared to be made of glass. The buildings were all translucent, and the sun shone through some of them.

Entering the city, our path was partly blocked by three glassy pillars, about the size of men. In fact, they were excellent likenesses of men (though one was a woman), carefully carved from a glassy substance, perfect in the minutest detail.

Carefully, I reached out to one of the glass statues. He recoiled from my touch, shuddering as if made of rubber. The next second, he was leaning over at an acute angle, and the moment after that he bounced back, past the upright position, and dealt me a solid blow on my shoulder.

Mazinta laughed aloud, and pushed the woman towards the man. With the same delayed motion, the female statue thumped into the male one. A small piece of the latter (a finger, or some such trifle) fell to the ground, bouncing several times.

"This is the town my Aunt told me about," said Mazinta. "It is called Jelly Bo Lee."

---

Chapter 14: Jelly Bo Lee to Coromandel

We entered the translucent city, amazed at the artistry with which the glassblowers had taken to depict the most realistic scenes. Inside the glassy houses, glassy people were cooking at glassy hearths, watched by glassy dogs. Everything, when I pressed my nose to it, gave off a faint smell, similar to attar of roses.

Outside grew glassy trees, in which sat glassy birds. Above one such tree, these birds were suspended in mid-air. As I watched, a small (real) bird landed on a larger glass bird. Was I imagining it, or did that small bird have a glass beak?

For an hour or more, we wandered around Jelly Bo Lee. There was not a sound; not a breath of wind. The only living thing I saw was that tiny bird. Yet everywhere - in that clear morning sunlight - were shadows, rushing past. Was it only our own two shadows, somehow reflected from those shiny buildings? Or was it a horde of invisible passers-by, everything stripped from them but shadows?

A little scared by superstition, I preferred the first interpretations. Yet I distinctly saw the shadows of cats fleeting by, tired workmen bowed down by heavy loads on their backs, old crones gossiping, and children throwing balls. I felt uneasy, and wanted to leave - but we were lost in a maze of lanes, unable to find any the city’s edge.

At last, almost fearful, I heard noises, as if somebody were hammering. Following these sounds, we reached a street where even the paving stones were translucent.

The sounds were coming from a nearby building. I rushed in, my feet sinking a little into the jelly-stone floor. In a courtyard at the back, a living man was working with a hoe - trying to prise a thin glassy stone from the wall.

"Blah!" I said to this man. He turned around, smiling broadly. "Minghy bing flinghy!" he answered, clearly delighted to see another living soul. Telling me that his name was Grinchme, he grasped me by the shoulders and embraced me closely in the traditional Batronian conshuggaree, shaking my head and licking my nose moisturously.

As he did so, I noticed that his left ear was translucent - I could see Mazinta through it.

Grinchme’s face smelt delicious, resembling Turkish Delight. As he kissed my mouth, our noses touched. I saw that his nose was translucent too, the palest orange. The veins stood out clearly in the transparent flesh.

As he persisted in the kiss, I took the opportunity to lick his nose. I was curious to see if the taste would be the same as the smell. Unfortunately, the tip of his nose broke off the moment my tongue touched it. I glanced quickly downward, unsure where it had fallen. I could not see it, but Grinchme gave no indication of noticing the loss of his nose-tip.

For an English greeting, I shook hands with him. He was wearing leather gloves on both hands; his fingers seemed a little loose.

"Your skin is so pale!" I exclaimed.

He grinned back at me. At least I could not see through his teeth.

"I’ve been working here for many years," he said. "This city is dangerous. Spend too much time touching jelly, and it grows into you. Look!"

He pulled off one glove, revealing a near-jellied palm. His fingers had been replaced by wooden ones, carved in a close simulation of the real shape. A network of thin leather strips tied these to his wrist and the remains of his thumb. He demonstrated how, by moving his wrist, he could manipulate these wooden fingers. It reminded me of a piano mechanism.

"Will you lose your palm too?" I asked.

"I hope not," he said. "I always wear these gloves, so I don’t need to touch the jelly. Yet my hand is becoming more and more clear."

He held it up in front of his face. I could see his eyes through the palm.

"My toes have gone too," he added, pulling his glove back on. "It’s not easy to walk, with wooden toes."

I forbore from mentioning his nose.

"In fact, all the soft ends," he continued, unfolding his flies. "Look at this."

I stood in front of Mazinta, so that she would not see anything untoward.

Grinchme’s generative organ was also wooden, and extremely well carved.

"My wife doesn’t mind at all," he cackled. "Too many babies already! And the last three were jelly. But look!"

Raising his wooden appendage, he pointed it at the base of the nearby jelly wall, and a thin pinkish stream began to flow out of it. I shrugged, somewhat embarrassed, as a small pool formed at the base of the wall, steaming a little in the cool air. While I watched, that pool of effluvium glazed over, rapidly turning to jelly, becoming a small mound.

After folding away his wooden organ (watched closely, I noticed, by Mazinta, who had crept around me) Grinchme sliced off the top of his little mound of excreta, and handed it to me. I shuddered, refusing to accept it. He looked most hurt.

"Give it to me," said Mazinta. She raised it to her nose, and sniffed.

"Don’t touch it!" I shouted, sure it would be contagious.

"Perfectly safe!" said Grinchme.

"Hmmm!" said Mazinta. "Delicious!"

Surely she hadn’t eaten it?

She held out the pinkish lump to me, resting it on the palm of her hand. I refused to touch it, but lowered my nose. It smelled of Turkish Delight.

Grinchme raised his hand to his face. I watched him as he rubbed his gloved wooden fingers over it.

"My nose!" he wailed.

"A dreadful mistake!" I babbled.

"Where is it?"

"He ate it!" said Mazinta in a low voice.

"Fool!" said Grinchme. ‘Now you will turn to jelly, from the inside out. I demand reparation! You have spoiled my face!"

Bursting into tears, he rushed toward me and tried to bite my nose off. Fortunately, his teeth were softer than my own fingertips. He retreating, sobbing painfully.

"Without a nose, I am nothing!" he shouted. "Not even a smell!"

"Where did you get those wooden fingers - and other parts?" I said crossly. "Fear not. I shall buy you a new nose!"

The foolish man was overcome by gratitude. Kneeling at my feet, he sobbed again. I noticed his lips were becoming translucent, and that his tears seemed to be eroding his lower lips.

He stood up, with a little more dignity, and invited us back to his own village, close by in the next valley. There I should find a wood-carver, who supplied bodily organs to replace jellified ones.

"But why do you come here?" I asked Grinchme, following him out of the building. He led the way to a cinquus, and showed me the contents of its saddlebags: thin stones of the substance of Jelly Bo Lee. "This is the livelihood of my village," he explained. "We take the thin pieces of jelly-glass and sell them to rich people for use as windows. It gives us a better living than farming our miserable soils. We lose some of our body, it is true, but - " he shrugged, and fell silent for a minute.

"But when we die," he added proudly, "our corpses are beautifully clear."

I asked Grinchme about Jelly Bo Lee. Had it always been so soft?

When his grandfather was a boy, he explained, an inexplicable disaster had befallen this valley. Whereas once it had been a fertile valley of pumpkin-farms, something had struck it suddenly: everything man-made was turned to jelly in an instant - hence the people in their natural poses. The only element not jellified had been the original soil.

"But the shadows!" I exclaimed, remembering them. "Those shadows, as if of crowds of people in the streets."

He nodded his head - which, on this island, signifies lack of comprehension. "There are no shadows," he said, puzzled. "There cannot be shadows on glass."

We met another scavenger returning home, an older man named Kakelunyu. He too was extremely friendly. It was late afternoon, and still sunny, but there were now no shadows: not even our own.

While Grinchme and Kakelunyu conversed in low tones, Mazinta and I followed.

"Why did you say I had swallowed Grinchme’s nose?" I asked.

"Because I saw you do it."

"I do not remember that."

"You have a very poor memory, Ellelear."

"So my insides really shall turn to jelly?"

"He said it takes 20 years," she pointed out. "You are already very old, so it will not matter."

It was almost dark when we reached Grinchme’s village. He seemed to be in no hurry at all. Mazinta explained: he was concerned that his fellow-villagers might laugh at his noselessness. So, once in the village, he led us directly to the woodcarver’s workshop. The man Whuckler and his family were huddled around a brazier eating their dinner, when our party arrived. Kakelunyu whispered something to Whuckler, who left his family and let us in to a nearby shed.

On a plank table was arrayed a large selection of bodily extremities, all laid out in the shape of a body.

Whuckler regarded Grinchme’s loss of his nose-tip as a tremendous joke. Grinchme, solemn at first, soon began laughing too. He tried all five nose-tips on offer, but none would fit well. Taking up a small knife, the woodcarver skilfully modified the second-largest nose-tip to suit Grinchme. I noticed that Mazinta was lurking at the centre of the table, fingering the phalluses. Of course I did not approve of this, but it would have been impolite to protest in public. Besides, I was needed to hold the new nose-tip while Whuckler vigorously applied sandpaper to the empty space above Grinchme’s mouth, scraping away the jellified flesh till blood began to appear. Whuckler then painted a pale orange liquid onto those spots of blood, turning them into glue, and clapped the new nose-tip in place - aligning the nostril-holes with a craftsman’s precision.

As Grinchme held his new nose-tip, waiting for the glue to set, I paid the woodcarver. The cost was 2 dinars, which seemed grossly exorbitant for a small piece of wood and a few moments’ work, but Whuckler was insistent that this price was cheap, for such a well-carved nose.

He too proved to be an excitable fellow. He ran around in small circles clasping the gold coins I had paid him. He then attempted to sell a miscellany of wooden parts to me. Lips, eyelashes (caterpillar-like objects), extra-large ears (for better hearing at a distance), and a monstrous wooden phallus (to better satisfy my supposed lady-friends). Laughingly, I declined all of these, whereupon Whuckler rushed into the depths of his workshop and returned with a hollow nose-shell, which fits over the top of a fleshly nose.

"What are the advantages of this?" I asked.

"Nobody can bite it off!" he cackled - and all the others joined in.

We stayed overnight at Kakelunyu’s comfortable house, complete with jelly-glass window panes. When I woke this morning, everything looked a little hazy, and a little orange, but most pleasant. It was disappointing to walk outside and find the weather grey.

I should have liked to dally a while in that village, where everybody seemed unusually friendly and hospitable - constantly offering to sell me all sorts of objects (and services). But Mazinta insisted that we must press on before the weather became any worse.

Just as we were about to leave, Whuckler came running up to us. "Something is missing!" he whispered sternly. Drawing me to one side, he explained that a boy-sized male organ had not been on the table when he opened his workshop this morning. "Did you take it?" he whispered (so that Mazinta would not overhear). "If you need one, I should be happy to oblige, but... so small?"

"An Englishman would never pilfer from a tradesman!" I stated firmly. "Absolutterly, conflabatogostically inconceivable!" I glanced at Mazinta, who was studying the sky. "I have no need of such a thing!"

"And your boy?" Whuckler asked.

"He is young and in perfect health," I averred.

Shaking his head in perplexity, the woodcarver retreated.

As we wound our way up the hill above that village, I asked Mazinta sternly "Did you take anything from that workshop last night?"

"Of course not," she said sweetly. "After all, I am already a boy. Whuckler said so."

This evening, while preparing to camp on the bans of a gentle stream, I thought I saw the gleam of a fish. I reached into the third pocket on my right, the second level down, for the small box of fishing-line and hoox, and my fingers encountered something jelly-like. I lifted it out. It was a pale orange jujube, with two parallel holes.

"Eureka!" I shouted to Mazinta. Unfortunately, she knows no Greek.

Kakelunyu told us that the Bay of Gurtle is two days’ easy walk for a cinquus. If we follow this narrow path, it should meet the main road soon, perhaps tomorrow morning. Then, tomorrow afternoon, we might arrive in Coromandel, at the head of the bay. The only thing that worries me is Jack Onions, who may not have left the main road, and knows full well that we are heading for Coromandel. I sincerely wished that he should find a village of people willing to be converted to Anglicanism. He would never want to leave.

Zinzipuss, about the end of May

This morning, when we reached the junction of the main road, I alighted from our steed, hid in the trees, and looked left and right cautiously.

"He’s not in sight!" I told Mazinta – and taught her to clap.

An hour or two later we reached a small town, named Zinzipuss. A lot of noise was coming from the central square, as we approached it. There must be a market in progress, I thought. Many voices were shouting; they seemed to be almost in unison.

"What are they saying?" I asked Mazinta, curious. "Is it something like ‘buy my goods’? Are they calling out prices?"

"I don’t understand," she said. "This is not Batronian."

Finally I made out a few words, in a strangely distorted accent. "Our saviour – who leadeth me – quiet waters – pastures green."

"Oh, no!" I said. Could we turn around – duck behind the town? No: there were walls around the fields of vegetables. Was there another street?

Too late!

"Welcome, my friends!" a voice boomed. "Join our happy congregation. Too late for Sunday’s mass, but just in time for Tuesday’s!"

In the central square of Zinzipuss is a raised platform, like a fountain without water. On that platform, standing next to his tiny church, was Jack Onions. He was dressed in the resplendent tomato-red habit, with a white cross on the chest. On his head was an amazing hat, not unlike a Groobly Warbler’s nest filled with bananas.

He was rushing out to greet us, blessing our steed with outraised arms as we dismounted.

"Our saviour," chanted fifty or a hundred people in the square: mostly not young, mostly women, but with some important-looking men. They were cheering at our arrival. Mazinta bowed graciously, and I raised my arms in supplication.

"You mustn’t interrupt my sermon," said Jack crossly, when I asked him what miracle had occurred here. "I’ll speak to you later," he said.

Our cinquus had been led away to a water trough, by a pair of serious looking young men. "Holy!" said one, pointing at it. "Abracadabra!" said the other.

We entered an inn at the edge of the square, and were fêted. Great dishes of purple pumpkin pie (the local delicacy) were set before us, with sweetmeats and pastries of all kinds, and the celebrated fruit drink Ring Bo Ree. (I could not stomach the raspberry juice, though.)

An hour or two later, Jack was still orating, and the crowd had grown. I tried to pay for our meal, but the innkeeper refused to accept any money, pointing to Jack.

"He is saving us," the man said. "And you are his friends."

I decided to leave there and then. I did not dare to interrupt Jack again: he was teaching the crowd to sing a hymn.

So we remounted our cinquus, and I waved goodbye to Jack, who did not seem to notice. The two boys who had fed the cinquus were walking beside us, quite companionably.

"How far is it to Coromandel?" I asked.

Just a few hours walk, they said. We should be there late in the afternoon.

As we left Zinzipuss, the boys were still with us. There were no longer two of them, but about six. In fact, some were men and women. They were laughing and joking among themselves. They too had a cinquus, I saw, even more laden than mine.

"What is happening?" I asked Mazinta.

"They are coming with us," she said, as if I were stupid.

"But why?"

"They like you. They want to be your friends. You are a very funny man, they are saying, and they are joining your circus."

This could not be right. There were not enough of them, and they were far too serious. Their manner was more that of a religious sect. "Don’t circuses have animals here," I asked. Mazinta laughed. "It is a fish circus," she said.

She was pulling my leg.

But now we were reaching the top of a small hill. A few people ahead of us had stopped, and were staring ahead. Since they were blocking the path, we stopped behind them.

"Look!" said Mazinta. "The bay!"

And there before us was a beautiful bay, maybe five miles wide between soft green hills. At its head of the bay, with the open sea visible beyond, were some islands. One was a barren mountain, glowing a rusty brown in the afternoon sunlight.

"The Myrtetic Mountain," a young man said. "Everything of iron is pulled to it, and many ships are wrecked. Never wear iron buttons there!"

"And where is Coromandel?" I asked, surveying the idyllic scene, which (apart from the mountain) reminded me of the view over the Solent from the Isle of Wight. Though not so magnificent as the Bay of Limbo, or the view from the top of Mount Oggodoggo , this is the pleasantest scene I have seen in the whole of Batrony. One might easily live here, I thought.

One of the serious young men was telling me that Coromandel was almost in sight, behind a small rise to me left: another hour’s walk. But nobody was in a hurry to leave. We all stood on the hilltop, pointing out sights to one another. A woman from the circus was showing me a cove opposite where Coromandel would be, if only it were there. That was the evil town of ––––, she said, advising me never to go near it.

"Have you seen what’s coming up the hill behind us?" Mazinta suddenly asked.

I admitted that I had, but didn’t like to think about it.

But now it was upon us: an oblong church with a tiny steeple, and a stained-glass window with loaves and fishes painted on its front.

How was it getting up that fairly steep hill so rapidly? It was being pushed by a team of followers.

"So we meet again, my friends!" Jack Onions boomed. "God bless you all!"