So at last we reached the outskirts of Coromandel, the second city of Batrony (ignoring Limbo). Here in the Bay of Gurtle, the fierce winds are blocked by the Myrtetic Mountain and the Isles of Boshen to the north-east. The waves were small, and many fishing boats were about: some on the water, some in the air, and others far below.

Our unruly caravan made its way into the city centre. First came our circus, with a few idlers that had accumulated on the road. My guide and myself were next, on our clumsy cinquus – closely followed by the Reverend Onions in his church. Running all around us, kicking pumpkins over our heads, were a crowd of local children, sensing new mischief

Coromandel has real stone buildings, the first I have seen since Kitoozh. A few streets behind the waterfront is a low cliff, on top of which are a few grand villas and the usual ovoid church. On the waterfront, the quay opens into a small square, which has a splendid bong-tree in its centre. In the square, ragged men were tossing prawns high in the air.

"Juggling?" I asked Mazinta.

"Aeration," she informed me. "It improves the taste, shaking the salt to their tails."

On the far side of the square, a woman in a flowing white gown was tossing three prawns in the air at once. I pointed this out to my guide. "Now that is a juggle, I’m certain," I said.

"Ask her!" said Mazinta crossly. "She’s coming over here."

The woman approached us, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. I hopped down from the cinquus, stumbled, and fell over. I picked myself up, to find her before me.

"My dear Mr Lear," she said. "As soon as you fell off your horse, I suspected it might be you."

"Jingly Jones!" I shouted, overjoyed. "Lady Jingly Jones! How delightful to meet you again."

Forgetting myself entirely, I embraced her tightly, repeatedly kissed her charming forehead, and all but lifting her from her feet, performed a brief impromptu jig in the city square. The three prawns she had been juggling struck me squarely on the head, each a few seconds apart - but I shrugged them off. "Yonghy Bonghy Bo!" I shouted, again and again. "Yonghy Bonghy Bo!"

"Mr Lear!" said Jingly at last. "Please put me down! You are making a spectacle of us."

I set her down, and beamed at her. Seldom have I been so pleased to meet a person unexpectedly.

Some fishermen had taken up their one-and-a-half-stringed Gurtulonian violins, and were serenading the howling prawns. It was a very catchy tune. The great bong-tree in the square caught a wind, and began bonging in time to the music.

"Madam, will you dance?" I asked Lady Jones.

As she looked doubtful, I asked the same question of an idle prawn, took its grunt as assent, and danced around the square with that unfortunate creature, singing "Yonghy Bonghy Bo" at the top of my voice, accompanied by the troupe of fisher-fiddlers. When I had completed one circuit with the startled prawn, I took Jingly by the hand, and danced her several times around the square.

My retinue stood by, mouths open, but all quite silent.

"Allow me to present Lady Jingly Jones, of Scutari," I announced to Jack, who had emerged from his church in shock. "The Reverend Jack Onions, late vicar of Borley-Melling in Dorkshire. Please excuse his pallor and lack of exuberance" (I whispered:) "but he is deceased, you see."

Jack was already arguing, but Jingly was speaking to me, so I did not hear him. "No longer of Scutari," she said. "Of Coromandel, now."

It took me (as always) some while to understand. "Of here?" I queried. "Of this town? Do you mean Coromandel? The self-same?"

She nodded. She nodded. She nodded. She nodded.

"But that is wonderful!" I exclaimed. "Is your husband posted nearby? Are there other English people here with you?"

She shook her head sadly. "I was on my way to the Crimea," she explained. "I had heard that my husband had been posted there, and had passed through Scutari without informing me. I wanted to know what was going on. So I took a steamer bound for Sebastopol. The ship’s engine became unsteamly, and we were wrecked on the far side of that mountain island at the head of this bay. Whilst the ship was sinking, and I was floundering in the water, with only a bagpipe to help me float, my naval umbrella drifted nearby. I seized it, both to ward off the vicious rocks and attract the attention of passing fishermen. All aboard perished but I. And all my possessions were lost: I came ashore with nothing but a night-gown and an umbrella and a bagpipe."

"How sad!" I exclaimed happily. "How long have you been here?"

"Almost a month. I hoped I should meet you. I have heard numerous reports of your progress, and knew that you had not yet visited this area."

I hoped she had not heard about my captivity at Zemmery, nor about my employment as lantern for a bandit gang. "What manner of reports have you heard?" I asked.

"Alarming stories. Sad stories, Amusing stories. I am not sure if I can believe all of them."

"Please don’t!" I assured her.

Jack Onions was still carrying on about the multitudinous injustices that had been done to him.

"For a dead man, he can certainly talk!" Jingly whispered to me. Our eyes met. She smiled. Once again I was hopelessly in love with her.

"Please accept this prawn, as an expression of my condolences for your demise," she told Jack Onions, handing him my late dancing partner. It was flopping with exhaustion.

I rapidly re-planned my visit. Coromandel is an extremely scenic town. Therefore I may stay here a good while. There will be many landscapes to paint. At the September equinox, in a few months’ time, a steamer is sure to arrive. Jingly and I shall leave on it together. Her husband will be overjoyed at my rescuing her, the War Office will award me a handsome pension, and she and I will remain firm friends for evermore. But of course, should General Jones be killed in battle...

"Your companion is looking restive," said Jingly. "How young he seems, and how handsome! Do please introduce me."

"My dragoman speaks no English," I said. In Batronian, I bade Mazinta come over to us. She did so sullenly. In the balmy sunshine, the hood of her gown was tossed back. There seemed further no point in hiding her gender.

"Her name is Mazinta," I told Jingly. "She seems to be a girl - today. Other days, she seems more of a boy."

Jingly laughed, that charming bell-like laugh of hers. "I do so love your nonsense, Mr Lear."

It then occurred to me that I could tell her the truth about everything, and she would regard it all as nonsense. I was both exhilarated and annoyed.

That night, at Jingly’s invitation, I dined at her house, the Villa Alibanda. It is one of the finest buildings in Coromandel, atop a low cliff, affording a splendid view of the town and the bay. A maid of Oriental appearance opened the door for me and curtsied awkwardly, as if she had just been taught to do so. "Ado, sir," she said, no doubt trying to speak English.

"You live very well, for a castaway," I observed to Jingly, as the maid poured me a glass of vintage Gurtulonian wine.

"I am a General’s wife, after all," she remonstrated. "It befits my Imperial duty to uphold a high domestic standard."

"I’m not sure whether I should have invited the Reverend Onions," she confided later. "But it seems he has no appetite, and besides, the War Office protocol manual specifically states that no deceased persons shall be accommodated on military premises – which includes this house, since the War Office will be paying the rent."

"Quite so," I assured her. "Among the armed forces, ghosts must be so numerous that one would never get a word in edgewise."

"That was a trifle ungentlemanly of you, this morning!" she remonstrated. "For a seeming eternity you manhandled me around that square."

"I am so sorry. I was quite carried away. You might have mentioned it at the time - why did you not?"

"I was enjoying it," she confessed sadly. "It was the first time in six months that a man had embraced me."

"Perhaps you should confess to the Reverend Onions," I suggested. In her dining room, I was facing the window, while she had her back to it. I strode across to the window, and flung it open.

Jingly looked around in amazement. Right outside the window, a small Anglican church was wobbling.

"Lady Jones!" announced a voice from within. "And Mr Lear! Please remember that tomorrow is Sunday. I shall be conducting a service at 7 in the morning."

"How quaint!" Jingly exclaimed. "But how will all three of us fit into that tiny church?"

In answer, I sang:

There once was a Reverend Jack
Who carried his church on his back.
When they said "You’re a snail"
He preached without fail,
That astonishing Reverend Jack.

Later that evening, following the consumption of yet more Gurtulonian wine, she put an astonishing proposal before me. "Where are you staying, whilst in Coromandel?"

"I have taken rooms at the Gurtulonomy Tavern," I told her. "It is exceedingly vile, but there is nothing else."

"Why do you not come and stay with me? I should be delighted if you could?"

"Here?" I stammered. "In this house." My heart soared up, then flopped down again. Sadly, I shook my head. "I am most honoured," I said, "but I am afraid it would Not Do."

"Pooh!" said Jingly. "One must needs adopt Native Customs, when the situation demands. In London, I should never dream of asking a Gentleman to stay with me, in the absence of my husband. And I daresay the Batronians would not countenance it either. But in this town, I have no reputation, save as a shipwrecked eccentric. Your guide must come too, of course, as chaperone."

"My dear madam, I am delighted!" I exclaimed. I rushed up from the table, knocking over a chair, embraced the gorgeous Lady Jingly, and danced her around the room, skipping lightly over the skittled maid and spilled bowl of soup which had been the trivial consequences of my overturned chair.

At length, exhausted, I sat her down again. The maid crawled back to the kitchen, to butter her scalded legs. "In other words," I said, "I accept."

"Capital!" said Jingly. "We can do some nonsense together. How long are you planning to stay. A few days?"

"I thought perhaps till September," I ventured. (I suspect we are now in June).

She was so well bred that she immediately concealed her astonishment. "That will be very jolly," she stated. I fancied she was a little displeased.

"Of course, if it poses the slightest inconvenience to you..." I said.

"Not at all, not at all!" she twittered, in her well-bred way. "I’m sure we shall manage splendidly."

After many warm protests on both sides, I agreed to move in the following day. As soon as I had bade Jingly goodnight and the front door had been closed behind me, I was besieged by Jack Onions and Mazinta. Both of them had been at the window, listening to every word.

"War Office protocol manual indeed!" Jack snorted.

"I suspect that measure was purely intended to guard against ghosts," I told him. "Otherwise the armed forces would be overrun with them."

"I’m sure that rule is intended to apply only to deceased servicemen, not to ministers of the church."

"Double pooh!" said Mazinta (whose command of English was improving by the day). "Nonsense and stuff! Sticks of fiddles!"

"You shall stay with me, little almond," I told her.

Mazinta didn’t know whether to be pleased or not. Though she could not stand Jack Onions, she was most wary of Jingly.

When we moved in today, I was given a grand room, next to Jingly’s. Both open onto a broad balcony, and have superb views across the bay. Mazinta will share with the maid Oeauiaia. Jingly, unable to pronounce such an un-English name, calls her maid "Ah Choo." In her view, the pronunciation is not much different.

"I lock my door at night," said Jingly, apropos of nothing. "It prevents me from walking too far in my sleep."

Loud shouting interrupted us. The Reverend Onions was arguing with the local priest, Father Boulak. The Rev. had established his edifice in the adjacent square, and was inciting passers-by to Anglicanism. Not surprisingly, Father Boulak (understanding the import, though not the words) asked the Reverend Onions to move his sermon elsewhere. By the time I arrived, the two were preparing to stone each other. A crowd had gathered - mostly the ragged fish-tossers from yesterday. Bets were already being taken.

Leading the Reverend gently by the spire, I rolled him to a side street, where a jeering crowd instantly gathered around him.

A fishing expedition

The other day I saw a charming pea-green boat, with pink and gray sails, tied up at the wharf below the Gurtulonomy Tavern. The waters of the Bay of Gurtle are exceptionally clear: the rubbish and old shoes below the wharf are fully visible, several fathoms down. Noticing a few fish nibbling at the shoes, I conceived the idea of a fishing expedition, hiring the pea-green boat.

Jingly thought this a capital idea, and had her maid prepare a picnic-basket. We set off early one sunny morning. A breeze blew us gently across the estuary, towards the town of ––, which I dimly remembered hearing of previously. Tiny waves reflected the sun, and beneath them we could see the occasional curious fish. It was a most enchanted morning, and we did not care to break its spell by landing at ––, reputed to be a den of crime. So we moored our craft among bulrushes a few bays south of ––, cast our lines into the sea, and unwrapped the picnic paraphernalia. But before we had a chance to eat, Jingly’s fishing line began to strain.

"I have a fish!" she exclaimed. She pulled and pulled, but with no success. I tried the line myself, and found that the fish was pulling even harder. Luckily it was a stout line.

Our craft, The Gurtle Turtle, had drifted closer to the shore, so I took up a paddle and rowed it back a little towards this massive fish, to see what it might be – perhaps one of the green porpoises for which this bay is famed. We were close to a small headland, almost in the next bay, when I found what was pulling on the line: another fish-hook. Jingly’s line had caught somebody else’s – an amazing fluke. Sailing around the headland we noticed three men in the next bay. They were fishing, gesticulating wildly at the huge fish on their line. Our boat – I now realized – was not sailing at all. It was being reeled in.

As we approached the three men, they realized that something was amiss.

"Excuse me!" I called. "You have fished our line." (It did not make sense in Batronian, either.) On seeing me, one man abruptly turned around and made off into the rushes.

We came almost to the beach. Polite regrets were exchanged, and the two hooks were being disentangled, when Jingly noticed something lying among the men’s tackle.

"What is that?" she demanded, pointing at it.

The two men, both swarthy long-nosed fellows, looked into the bushes where their companion had departed so hurriedly – as if to say it was his. Though Jingly spoke in English, her meaning was clear.

"It’s an umbrella!" she said. "A black umbrella. Isn’t it? Please inquire, my dear Edward."

Unfortunately, there is no Batronian word for umbrella.

"Where did that come from?" I asked politely. Jingly had spoken a little rudely, and I am afraid that Does Not Do in Batrony.

They shrugged, and pointed towards the bushes.

"Is that my umbrella?" Jingly demanded, in a very military voice. "Or is it yours?" she demanded, turning to me.

"Yours is in the umbrella-stand in your front hall," I observed.

"I suspect this could be a stolen Navy umbrella," she declared. She was preparing to jump from the boat into the knee-deep water and examine it, when the third man dashed back out of the bushes, his head down, grabbed the umbrella, and raced away again.

His two companions shrugged.

I think I recognized the man – and I think he recognized me. The scoundrel Damitry! He who had purloined my umbrella! And then I remembered where I had first heard of the town of –--– : it was his birthplace.

The other two men were rapidly gathering their things, and disappearing into the bushes.

I told Jingly of my suspicions, and naturally she was outraged.

We changed our plans, and sailed east to the next bay, to the town of –--–. Jingly was going to report Damitry to the local police, but I was not sure if they existed.

–--– proved to be a small and dirty town, surrounded by thousands of pigs. All the houses are made of leather skins, tied to wooden poles. In the breeze, the walls move in and out, making a sound not unlike "––-–". One building is larger and more commodious than the rest. We made towards it, assuming the Murgatroyd lived there. But before we reached it, he met us on the street: a timid little man, with a very nostrilxious sniffer. I asked if a man called Damitry lived nearby. The Murgatroyd pointed to the biggest house, and told us that Damitry had recently returned after many years abroad, in Paris, Philadelphia, Peking, and Constantinople. He had brought many amazing inventions back with him. They included a spoon that could be runced, a coppery gong, a nutcracking sugar-tong, and an amazing British weapon given him by a Lord in London: a gun that made no sound and used no bullets.

I described some of those objects in enough detail that the Murgatroyd believed it possible Damitry had stolen them from me. It was clear that he did not trust Damitry.

We marched to Damitry’s house and knocked on the leather door. A timid woman fell out. We asked for Damitry, and she gabbled away in some language I had never heard. It seemed that Damitry was away, and it was not known when he might return.

I have never seen Jingly angry before, nor would I care to see it again. I even feared for her husband, though he is a General.

We returned to our pea-green boat, and sailed home to Coromandel, where she found that her umbrella (identical to mine, though more worn) was indeed in the elephant’s-foot in the front hall of the Villa Alibanda.

Last night she said little. She was cooking up a plan, which she told me this morning at breakfast.

"There is only one thing for it. The Royal Navy’s honour depends on this. We must recover that umbrella – and you must recover your runcible spoon, your coppery gong, and your nutcracking sugar-tong. As you are the aggrieved party, you must be the combatant."

"Combatant?" I exclaimed in horror.

"We shall do this in a gentlemanly way – though that bounder does not deserve it. That lazy Murgatroyd will never take action, so we shall recover your things in a duel."

"A duel?" I exclaimed in horror.

"It is very easy. I shall be your second. Your weapon shall be my umbrella. A little tattered after my shipwreck, but it works perfectly." She then marched to the front hall, seized the umbrella, and presented it to me in a military way.

Though I can recognize a military way, I cannot imitate it. I dropped the umbrella.

Jingly scolded me, and showed me how to bear the umbrella on my shoulder, and how to aim "to kill." Privately, I thought this ridiculous, but as she is a lovely woman, I humoured her.

"What if Damitry refuses to engage?" I asked hopefully.

"The Murgatroyd will not let him. I have sent the invitation through the Murgatroyd. He is on our side, I am sure."

A duel

The next day at dawn, we left: I in great trepidation, Jingly quite unconcerned. She had hired the Gurtle Turtle again, this time with a boatman ("in case of trouble," she explained vaguely). When we docked at the wharf near –--– , the Murgatroyd was there, with Damitry. The wretch refused to look at me, and was holding my umbrella at an insolent angle.

We stood in a seaside field, surrounded by puzzled pigs, and Damitry pointed the umbrella at me. I was terrified, remembering the dead bird in the Black Sea and the holes in the rock near Kitoozh. I pointed Jingly’s umbrella back at him.

The rules were that we would both fire, until one or the other of us was "vanquished." Damitry was fumbling with the umbrella, perhaps trying to open it as a shield. I had not thought of that. The Murgatroyd, standing next to a bong tree, was counting to 10 (which in Batronian is also 39) before shouting "Go!" when Damitry’s umbrella, half-open, was caught by the first gust of the morningly north-easterly.

"Go!" shouted the Murgatroyd.

I paused, because Damitry was not quite ready: he seemed to be wrestling with the umbrella, holding it with only two fingers.

"Go!" shouted Jingly.

This seemed a little unfair, so reluctantly I pointed Jingly’s umbrella to the left of Damitry before clicking it. At that moment, Damitry’s umbrella caught another gust, and blew to his right. He lunged toward it, and fell to his feet with a thud.

And where was I?

When I awoke, I found myself lying on soft grass. A gentle arm was holding my head. "Dearest Edward!" said a sweet voice. "Please do recover!" It was Jingly. I recovered instantly. She put a flask of Ring Bo Ree to my lips and bade me drink. "I was so worried," she wept. "At first I thought he had killed you."

A spot on my ear was smarting. Gingerly, I touched it, then reared back in pain.

Jingly studied it closely, her beautiful head close to mine. "A hook-shaped cut," she announced. "It must be a umbrella wound. But it is scarcely bleeding at all, so I suspect the projectile bounced off. You are lucky, dearest Edward. You will live, I trust."

"What happened to Damitry?" I asked, wobbling to my feet.

"You may have killed him," she said gravely. "His body is on the far side of this tree."

We walked around the bong tree. Sure enough, the crumpled body of Damitry lay on the ground, observed by the Murgatroyd and several curious pigs. Blood was pouring out of his neck, and he was making unpleasant noises.

"Congratulations!" said the Murgatroyd calmly, shaking my head. (It is considered impolite to shake hands, on the eastern side of the bay).

Jingly turned up a moment later, clutching my own umbrella. It had blown onto a pig, which had sucked the cloth a little, and bent one rib.

"Christy of Gracechurch Street, by appointment to Her Majesty’s Navy," she shouted, reading the label. She had to shout, because at her feet, Damitry was screaming in agony.

I poked him gently in the ribs with the tip of the umbrella, but he did not respond.

"Harder!" urged Jingly. "Like this!"

Stepping back, swinging an elegant leg, she kicked him hard where his breeches met. This was exceedingly unsporting of Jingly, but as she is a mere woman, I had to refrain from telling her so.

He gave an unusually loud scream, then fell quiet.

"I think he’s bleeding to death," I said, pointing to the gushing wound in his neck.

"Nonsense!" said Jingly. She strolled over to the bong tree and broke off a twig, as thick as her thumb, and as long as a man’s neck. She strolled back to Damitry (holding up her skirts with one hand to avoid a patch of pig-dung) and thrust the stick into the hole in his neck. It did not go in all the way, so she kicked it in, with her stout Batronian boots. He screamed again, louder than ever, but within a few minutes, the bleeding had slowed to a trickle.

"He will live," the Murgatroyd told me. "You are lucky, otherwise I should have had to try you for murder."

Though the thought of prison had not occurred to me, I was so relieved and delighted that I seized Jingly’s hand, and danced her around the field, singing as I went a limborick I devised on the spot.

A trepidous traveller near ----
downed a devious fellow from ----.
His trusty umbrella
desproncted that fella;
That fortunate duellist near ----.

("----" is best pronounced by breathing in loudly.) That was the first verse. During the fourth, my foot fell into a pig-hole, and we both tumbled over, into the soft grass. I had to hold Jingly tightly to make sure she came to no harm. It was heaven!

As we helped each other up, we were disturbed by an ungainly shout. Looking up, we saw Damitry hobbling toward us, supported by one of his fishing companions. He fell at my feet, mumbling incoherent words of gratitude, slobbering on my shoes.

"What’s he saying?" Jingly asked.

"He’s requesting forgiveness," I advised.

I tapped him on the shoulder with my umbrella, and he uttered a wild cry of pain.

"Arise, Damitry!" I said. "I spared your life by aiming wide, but next time you will not be so lucky!"

He cried out incoherently, clutching his nether regions.

"You will apologize to Lady Jones for animadverting as to her honour!" I declared.

He fell at her feet, and cravenly began to lick her shoes. "Revolting!" she declared, and kicked him in the face. A little blood dripped from his neck, at both ends of the bong-stick.

"Let us go, dearest Edward," she said, slipping her arm into mine.

We repaired to the shore, where I painted a view looking across the bay. In the foreground, Jingly sat on the low bough of a comfortable crumpetty tree, while several pigs sucked at its leaves. In the background, the crags of the Myrtetic Mountain loomed into the sky. In my entire life, I have seldom been happier than early this afternoon.

An argument

As we were returning to the Gurtle Turtle, Damitry hobbled up to us again, a much-folded sheet of paper in one hand. The stick that was stuck through his neck now had a grubbly bandage to catch the drippling blood.

"This is yours," he told Jingly, pressing it on her, apologizing profusely for having taken it.

Surprised, she unfolded it. It was one of the sketches that I had made of her, in her bedroom at Constantinople: the one that Jingly had kept.

"How did you come to have this?" she demanded of Damitry.

Of course he understood no English. "Tell me!" she shouted.

"I do not understand," he stammered in Batronian. I had to translate.

"He says he found it," I told Jingly.

"Where?" she snapped.

"Where did you find it?" I asked Damitry in Batronian.

"It was washed up on the beach," he answered in Greek.

I passed this news on to Jingly.

In this way, the three of us had a conversation, each using a different language. Our voices became louder and louder, and surprisingly harsh words were spoken. Before long, numerous –---folk joined in, vehemently arguing with one other about the topic of our conversation, the inevitability of air, and the metaphysics of umbrellas.

Unfortunately, Jingly seemed to be blaming me for the poor condition of her sketch, demanding to know where my own copy was. I was forced to confess that I’d lost it.

In stony silence, we sailed back to the cruel shore. She sat in front of the mast, looking west. I sat at the back, looking east. On the wharf at Coromandel, we departed with curt good-byes. As we were not looking at each other, but were going to the same place, I had to walk backwards, behind her.

After wondering all night what we had argued about, I penned an abject note of apology, and called Mazinta to take it to Jingly’s villa.

"Noncess and stuffing!" she remarked crossly. "That is here!"

"Of course!" I said, pacifying her. "Do be a good girl. Walk around the house, knock on the front door, hand this letter to the maid, then walk around the house again."

With an ungrateful toss of her head, she did so. I should have realized that the English sense of protocol requires generations of training. Foreigners may never master it.

A few minutes later, at my ablutions, I heard the neighbouring door open, and a gentle voice call for her maid: "Ah Choo!"

Putting my ear to my own door, I heard whispering. Then I heard light footsteps rushing down the stairs. I heard the back door open, with its special creak. I heard footsteps rushing down the side path, and looked out the side window in time to see Oeauiaia speed past, carrying something pink. I then heard knocking at the front door. (They have no door-bells here). Mazinta, downstairs, called crossly to Oeauiaia, who was of course outside. She prevailed on Mazinta to unbolt the door. With my ear to one of the worm-holes in the door (they have no keyholes here) I heard Mazinta being given something by Oeauiaia. Mazinta’s footsteps then raced up the stairs.

My door was pushed open, and Mazinta came in. The wretch has not learned to knock. "Here is a letter for you," she remarked.

I examined it. On a large pink envelope, in an exquisite hand, was written:

Edward Lear, Esq.
c/o H. D. Jones (Lady)
"Villa Alibanda"
Coromandel
Isle of Batrony

Opening it, I found a note, on pink rose-patterned paper. (Where does she obtain such things?)

My dear Mr Lear,
I gratefully accept your apology of the11th (?) inst, and
trust that you will never upset me in such a manner again.
I remain,
Yours faithfully,
J. Jones (Mrs)

"She remains!" I shouted to Mazinta, taking her by the hands and attempting to dance. "Faithfully!" But the stubborn wench refused to move her feet, and made a tart remark.

So I left my room, walked four paces to Jingly’s door, and knocked. "Enter!" said her sweet voice, from inside.

I opened the door, and looked around. Nobody was there. I stepped one pace into the room, sniffing the perfumed air. Silence!

But something grabbed my ankle, and pulled me to the floor. As I lay there, aching a little, and breathing heavily, Jingly hopped out from under the bed.

"Never do that again, Mr Lear!" she warned, admonishing me with a gentle finger.

"Never do what?" I asked, rubbing my head.

"Never mind!" she said, helping me up.

A sleepwalker

Sleeping soundly last night, I was disturbed by creaking sounds at the balcony door. I woke instantly: somebody was trying to come in. I opened my eyes a peep, and in the bright moonlight saw a figure enter: a woman in a filmy night-gown, that waved whitely behind her in the breeze. She was speaking softly. "This just will not do, Handel. It will not do."

Jingly was sleepwalking. She drifted slowly to my bed, and leaned over my face, perhaps to see in her sleep if I were awake. I closed my eyes tightly. "We are ever so lonely, aren’t we?" she said – and kissed me lightly on the lips. For a few seconds she rested her head on my chest. I dared not move. Then she slid out.

I could not sleep again, for wondering whether this vision had been a dream – but in the morning when I woke, the balcony door was still open.

"Did you have a peaceful night?" I asked her at breakfast.

"I dreamed of my husband," she answered, sighing deeply.

---

Chapter 16: The Bay of Slugs

Father Boulak, in one of his rambling stories, told us of the terrible slugs on one of the Isles of Boshen, just beyond the Myrtetic Mountain. Jingly was most amused at the notion of terrible slugs, and vowed that she and I would go there and "sort them out in a military way" – though she did not say what that way was, nor in what order she proposed to sort them.

"I beg you!" begged Mazinta, who had been eavesdropping. "Do not go! You will be shocked and killed. Nobody has survived, from that island."

"How do you know this?" I asked.

"It is unspeakable," she sobbed. "Unthinkable, unimaginable, understandable."

"Understandable?"

"Nobody can derstand it." She clutched at my arm, howling like a legless dog. "For your safety’s sake, do not go."

"Nonsense!" said Jingly. "We are British, and afraid of nothing. Are we not, Mr Lear?"

I swallowed nervously. In fact, I am deeply afraid of the women of Zemmery, but was unwilling to admit as much in Jingly’s presence.

"With our sharpshooting umbrellas and my regimental bagpipes, we are ready for anything," Jingly declared.

At the landing place on the Isle of Slugs, we left Mazinta to supervise the Gurtle Turtle and its young skipper. If we did not come back by nightfall, she said, she would return to Coromandel and announce our deaths. In fact, she did not say "if" but "when."

Jingly and I climbed the hill, each carrying the other’s weapon. The oversized bagpipes, with tubes projecting in all directions, were difficult to carry, and kept getting caught in bushes. I noticed that in the end of each tube was a cork.

"Why?" I asked Jingly.

"To protect innocent creatures, should any deadly sounds escape. But they also kept water out, when I was shipwrecked. I owe my life to those corks."

Naturally I asked her how she came to have cork-stopped bagpipes at hand while the ship was sinking, but she skilfully changed the subject. She excels at that.

When we reached the summit, and saw the view on the other side, we stopped in amazement. We were at the head of a beautiful valley. At its foot was a small but perfect bay, with a wide sandy beach. Half a dozen villages dotted the slopes of the valley, and a wild stream leaped down its fold. In the morning sun, the entire valley was covered in a criss-cross of shiny tracks. These might have been roads - except that they ran over the tops of houses and trees. The entire scene was one of desolation.

Without a word, we walked down the hill for a few minutes, to the first track. It was perhaps eight feet wide and knee-high. It looked as if it were made of a slimy, milky jelly. I picked up a twig and poked it at the substance. The twig stuck fast, and I could not pull it out again.

"If this is the trail, imagine the size of the slug," I said.

"Pooh!" said Jingly. "Slugs are nothing!"

Picking up the bagpipe, she pulled out the corks from two of its tubes, and handed them to me.

"Put these in your ears," she instructed. "When I play the pipes. Otherwise, you will be deafened."

"And your own ears?" I asked anxiously.

"You forget, Mr Lear, I am a military wife. I am inured to deafening sounds. Cannon-fire and bagpipe music alike are nothing to me."

She put her lips to the mouthpiece, asking me to point the ends of the two uncorked tubes towards the slime track.

"Now!" she said, indicating my ears. Obediently (but feeling a little foolish) I inserted the two corks.

No sooner had I done so than I heard a screeching so terrible that it almost split my head apart. I was glad of the corks.

In front of me, the knee-high slime-track was already beginning to sag. Water was streaming out of it, soaking into the ground and running into a small declivity nearby. The topmost layer of slime was turning from white to brown. It steadily shrank to a thin crust on the ground.

Within a few minutes, the place where the slime had been was dry enough for us to walk through. In the centre of the track was a flaky lump the size of a loaf of bread. With a stick, I scraped off the flakes, and was surprised to find the body of a cat. The entire cat, fur and all, had turned bright yellow.

For several hours we walked down that valley, stopping every few minutes to clear a path through another track of slime. Embedded in those tracks were all sorts of things that the slug-slime had engulfed: even three young children, who had evidently been clutching one another in horror at the moment of their interment.

"I only hope," said Jingly, "that death came quickly to these poor infants."

I gave a little sob at the hideous sight. All of them were bright yellow from head to foot.

Everywhere was despoliation: ruined pumpkin crops, slimed villages, trees torn apart. In some places, the very earth had rotted away.

It disturbed us that there was no sign of the slug itself. Slugs are nocturnal (Jingly and I kept reminding each other) so there could be no danger during the day.

Around midday we reached the cove, with its sandy beach. We had noticed several caves around its edge, and Jingly thought slugs might be asleep in these. Though I thought it madness itself to approach such terrible monsters, Jingly was quite confident of our weapons. But despite several inexplicable events, I refused to regard my umbrella as a weapon.

As Jingly strode towards a large cave, I stopped to look at a small cave, to check its size. It was empty, and its mouth was just large enough for a person to crawl through. Inside, it became larger, with room for two to stand. If we had to flee, it would be to here. I just hoped that the slug would not be able to fill the cave with slime.

"Where are you?" Jingly called to me.

"Coming!" I shouted.

But a dreadful squishing sound had begun, along with a deep gluey rumble. A gigantic eye-peduncle appeared from a cave near Jingly. She screamed. A second peduncle emerged to join the first. From stalks as thick as a man’s waist and taller than two men, eyes the size of watermelons peered.

Jingly was running towards me in terror, slowed down by the huge bagpipe she was carrying.

In a trice, I raised my trusty umbrella, pointed it at a peduncle, sighted along some spikes, and clicked the centre spring. There was a tiny popping sound, and - miraculously - a large hole appeared through the peduncle. I could see the sky on the far side. A flock of seagulls had been whirling around, attracted by Jingly’s scream. I raised my umbrella, as a warning. One gull flew through the hole in the peduncle, followed by another gull, than another. But already the hole was shrinking. The third gull seemed to touch its left wing on the side of the hole. As soon as it emerged from the other side, it fell to the ground with a fatal squawk, changing colour while it dropped. The left wing was no longer pale grey, but bright yellow.

Jingly had arrived now, sobbing. I dragged her up into the small cave, hoping that we should be safe there. We could barely squeeze the bagpipes through the entrance, which was only about two feet round.

When we were inside, I took her hand and solemnly kissed it.

"Thank you for saving my life, Mr Lear," she said. Her smile brightened the cave.

"Any time, Madame," said I.

As we waited in that cave, Jingly removed all of the corks from the pipes. I put most of them in my pocket, leaving only two for my ears and two for hers.

A little later, we heard the monster begin to move. Along with the loud squishing sound, it made a faint whistle, as well as a low roar.

Heads together, we peered out of the cave entrance. A few yards below us, a terrifying sight emerged. Only now did I understand Mazinta’s concern. The thing was too awful to describe, and as large as a horse.

Fortunately, it did not seem to notice us. The eyes on their stalks appeared to be looking toward the top of the valley, whence we had come. As the hideous being passed our cave, it turned slightly away. It was so close that we had a clear view of its slime-glands, exuding a thick white foam as it moved.

Then the creature must have scented us, or heard my whisper. No sooner had it passed us than it wheeled around. Terrified, we drew back in the cave. One of the eye-peduncles was right outside the mouth of our cave, trying to see us in our darkness, calculating whether it could reach into our cave and slime us in situ.

We hardly dared to breathe. I hoped against hope that the gigantic eye would be unable to enter our cave. It was so dark, with the monster blocking out the sun, that I could hardly make out Jingly’s shape beside me. She reached out her left hand, gently touching my ears, to check that the corks were in place.

Then she put that regimental mouthpiece to her mouth, and blew for all she was worth.

A terrible sound, worse than treading on the tails of a thousand cats, filled the cave. Even through my corks, it almost deafened me. I clapped my hands over my ears in dismay.

But what was happening now? The huge eye, on the point of entering the cave, seemed to be flaking away. Small particles, like the petals of a long-dead flower, were falling to the floor of the cave. The eye-peduncle was withdrawn. We could see daylight again.

Valiant Jingly then dashed forward to the mouth of the cave, once more putting her lips on the mouthpiece and blowing several notes. Through a narrow gap next to her head, I saw the slug crumbling away, like a child’s sandcastle in a rainstorm. The exudate from the slime-glands changed from a milky-white to a rancid orange-yellow, then ceased. The slug itself, as it dissolved, slowly turned from purple and grey, through orange, to brown, all the time shrinking and falling away.

Within a few minutes, the rampaging monster had become a heap of brown scum. Below it, the released water was flooding into the sand.

"One slug dissolved," said Jingly, climbing out of the cave. "Who said music hath no power?"

"That is the second most terrifying thing that has ever happened to me," I admitted.

"And what was the most terrifying?"

"It was at Zemmery," I admitted, but would say no more.

Jingly begged me to tell her what had befallen me there.

"I dare not," I said. "You would be revolted, and you would think less of me."

"Impossible!" she declared.

I embraced her warmly, but she seemed hard and fierce. "Thank you, Mr Lear," she said gravely. "But we should celebrate later, when we have killed them all."

"All?" I gasped dumbly. "Are there more slugs, then?"

"Sure to be," she said. "Did you ever find only one slug in your garden?"

"No," I admitted sadly. A garden is something I have never had.

"Observe the width of this track," she added, pointing at the band of scum near our feet. "Approximately four feet wide, would you agree?"

I nodded.

"You will remember that we saw tracks double this width at the top of the hill," said Jingly. "We have killed a small one, but at least one more is still at large."

"Twice as big!" I gasped.

It was late afternoon when we reached the pass near the summit and could look down to the western side of the island, but there was no Gurtle Turtle waiting below. Mazinta and the skipper (who seemed to be on very friendly terms) must have returned to –-- or Coromandel to announce our deaths. We should have to wait for the boat to return to collect our corpses.

But it was a warm night, and the moon was near full. We sat near the top of the pass, looking east over the despoiled valley. Anxious about slugs, we noticed a small building with a flat roof – perhaps an abandoned watch-house. We entered, and climbed a steep staircase. On the roof, trapped by a low wall, was a broken-off piece of cloud. It was soft and springy, the perfect mattress. Eventually we fell blissfully asleep in each other’s arms, our heads pillowed on the huge bagpipes.

I was awoken by somebody pulling at my shoulder. It was Jingly. I sat up in amazement, more at her proximity than anything else.

"Look!" she whispered.

In the moonlight below us stood three huge creatures: not giant slugs, but giant something elses. They looked like elephants that had been cut to pieces and carelessly reassembled. Each had three legs, three arms, and, instead of a head, something resembling a vertical trunk with two bulges at the bottom but only finger-thick near the top. Around their waists they wore kilts. From a bag on the back of each monster projected a shiny tube with a widened end, which rubbed against the ground.

Suddenly, all three tubes were pointed at us. The creatures made strange sounds, like the twitterings of birds (though louder and deeper) and advanced upon us rapidly. Their heads were as far from the ground as we were, two storeys up. I uttered a despairing cry. It seemed that they would attack us, and my little umbrella would not deter them.

"Don’t worry," said Jingly. "I’ll turn the bagpipes onto them."

Reaching for her pipes, she quickly played a few notes.

Abruptly the three monsters stopped advancing, and began to dance. I swear they were dancing, but Jingly believes that they were indecisive about whether to advance or retreat.

While Jingly played for all she was worth - some dreadful Scottish war-cry - the monsters approached very slowly, as if not to scare us. I sensed now that they meant us no harm. I also noticed, in the moonlight, numerous slugs melting on the hillside below.

The elephant monsters stopped a few yards away from our watch-house, still twittering to each other. One reached forward, with a surprisingly long arm, as if asking Jingly for the bagpipe.

"Better let them have it," I advised her, fearful for her safety.

The monster picked up the bagpipes, but to my surprise made no attempt to play a tune - perhaps because it had no mouth. Instead, it seemed to be studying the regimental tartan, and showing this to the other two monsters. They seemed to find the tartan most amusing, for they all twittered again, and the second monster handed the bagpipes back to Jingly, with a little bow.

The third one had requested my umbrella. Despite its coarse limbs, it had delicate fingers, that discovered the opening and closing mechanism. It did not realize, however, the necessity of holding the umbrella over one’s head. With the umbrella’s tip upwards, it flicked the spring. There was a tiny pinging sound. An instant later, a star from that corner of the sky began falling, with a growing flash of light. The star seemed about to tumble down on top of us, when it suddenly disappeared.

Politely handing the umbrella back to me, the creature twittered and rejoined its companions, who were already resuming their diligent search of the ground with the shiny metal tubes.

"Saved!" I whispered to Jingly. She had begun to whimper, either with terror or relief.

Something else was happening now. On the hillside below us, the three monsters were again pointing their metal tubes, this time at a large rock outcrop. Strange sounds now began. Where had I heard those before?

"No!" whispered Jingly in fear. Slowly, a peduncle emerged from the rock outcrop. Then another. The bulging eyes waved around - I hoped they didn’t spot us, atop our watch-house. Then the slug lurched forward - and the three monsters smartly leapt back. The slug was as big as they were - double the size of the one we had killed earlier.

Gleaming evilly in the moonlight, it lunged at the three monsters again, but this time they jumped sideways. From the three metal tubes huge bubbles frothed out. Three of these giant bubbles merged into one, completely enveloping the slug. It squirmed and struggled, but the bubble shrank in, ever more tightly. If this bubble was of water, it was very strong water. Eventually the slug was writhing in its confining bubble – and shrinking, too.

Then a most amazing thing happened. The three monsters each picked up a corner of the bubble, and they carried that slug away, to a smooth, pale building that I had not noticed. At one side of this building, a rounded door opened, and the slug was carried inside.

What happened next was even more amazing. The whole building rose slowly into the sky. Through a circular window in it, I could see one of the monsters looking down at us. Then, like a flash, the building disappeared upwards.

"Did you see that?" said Jingly, puzzled beyond measure. "That carriage flew into the sky?"

"Carriage? I thought it was a house."

I believed Jingly, knowing how poor my vision is.

Hoping there were no more slugs, we somehow went back to sleep. At least, Jingly did: but she tossed around so much that I could not sleep.

Woken by the cold light of dawn, we groaned, a little stiff and hungry. Our clothes were damp from the cloud we had slept on. From its torn edge, a little puddle had seeped.

"I had a very strange dream last night," I began.

"So did I," said Jingly. "Too scary to discuss."

Looking out, we saw now that the valley was entirely free of slime-trails.

"We have finished the job," she said. "Let us return, and announce our lack of death."

We strolled gaily up to the pass, from where we saw our boat at the landing place. Halfway up the hill was a search-party coming up to find our remains: Mazinta, the young boatman, and the Murgatroyd of –--–.

We had a galloobious reunion on the hillside, tossing umbrellas in the air, deafening one another with bagpipes (scattering the local gulls), and generally dancing around with glee.

"Slugs are nothing," said Jingly modestly.

Another sleepwalker

That night, back in Coromandel, I was awoken by lights flashing before my sleeping eyes. I opened them: something white was waving on the balcony: Jingly was sitting on the parapet of the balcony outside our rooms, chanting something to herself, her night-gown blowing loose around her shoulders. Worried that she might fall off backwards, I rushed out.

"What is it?" I asked gently. "Are you awake?"

She did not answer, so I stood up and held her. Tears were streaming down her face. I led her slowly back to her bed, and laid her down. As I rearranged the sheet over her, I could not resist kissing her cheek. In the dark I could not see if her eyes were open or closed, but I fancied I heard the faintest murmured "thank you" as I closed her balcony door.

The Akondessa

A week or two after our jaunt to the Isle of Slugs, a messenger came to Jingly’s villa, bearing a great box, plated with prawn-scales. On opening it, Jingly found a small letter inside, inviting her to the Town Hall the next afternoon for an audience with the Murgatroyd.

She was worried that she had inadvertently committed some crime, but I assured her that it would be near impossible to deport her. Strangely, this did not cheer her up.

I therefore accompanied her to the Town Hall, juggling all the way. On the entrance steps, the Murgatroyds of both Coromandel and –– were waiting. They shook her head (as people do here), helped her shake theirs, and escorted her inside, where a feast was laid out.

She was to be awarded a special certificate for her valiant work on the Isle of Slugs. But she was unaccountably irritated. "It’s nothing at all," she said modestly. "All credit is due to the British Army, the owner of the regimental bagpipes."

I should have hoped a tiny amount of credit was due to me, but being modest and shy, I did not press the issue.

When we were all merry with Gurtulonian wine, the Murgatroyds bowed before Jingly, presenting her with an impressive document, festooned with official stamps, coloured signatures, and arcane symbols.

"What is this?" she asked.

"The slugs have marauded the bay for hundreds of years," I interpreted. "The villages were deserted long ago. An early Patrakond declared that anybody who rid the bay of slugs would win title to the island. Congratulations, Akondessa Jingly: you are now lord of the of the Isle of Slugs, The island is yours. You shall receive the rents, and decide what crops may be cultivated there."

Akondessa Jingly was a little taken aback. The crowd of onlookers seemed to be waiting for her to declare the preferred crops.

"I saw some pumpkins growing there," she mused. "If they grow well despite the slugs, why should they not grow better still?"

"Pumpkins!" I announced to the multitude, in Batronian. There was some diagonal nodding, indicating a lack of complete disagreement

"But – " (Jingly continued) "pumpkins are boring."

I dared not translate this, and hoped she would continue.

"Hollow pumpkins!" she declared. "When the wind blows through them, they make a bagpipe sound."

As I did not know the Batronian for "bagpipes," I translated it with an appropriate noise. Some people ran out, terrified, but others remained, hands over their ears - childish behaviour, for Batronian speech is replete with rude noises.

"How can we eat hollow pumpkins?" a woman demanded.

"They grow from the outside in," Jingly explained. "I have seen them, sold as weapons on the wharves at Odessa. The early pumpkins blow, but later they are friable in a fricassee."

Grumbling broke out, but it was the sort of grumbling that acknowledges unhappiness at change, while resigning itself to the whims of authority.

"How can she get pumpkin seeds from Odessa, when all the ships are wrecked?" somebody muttered.

"Pooh!" said Jingly. "I shall find a way!"

The Isles of Boshen

Another sunny day, the two of us hired the Gurtle Turtle again, and sailed up the bay, beyond the Isle of Slugs, to the Isles of Boshen. They were farther away than we had thought. We landed on a small island that was quite deserted, apart from an old wharf. I made a sketch of Jingly sitting on the wharf with a fishing line, her bare feet hanging down towards the fish. And when she caught a fish or two, I made some more nonsensical sketches. In one of these, she danced on the wharf with a very large fish.

"A fishy life could be a splendid one," she said, "on a day like this. I think I shall try it. These waters look so inviting." She seemed to be asking my permission.

"By all means, do," I said, a little anxiously.

"And would you care to join me, my dear fish?" she asked, disrobing already.

"No, no, no," I muttered, as she dived in. "My water-colours might get wet. Too blue!"

I made a sketch of her in the water, as a fish. She could certainly swim as well as one - and teased me as if on a line.

Later I found myself in the sea, partly clothed. I am not sure how that happened - but the water was warm – and what can one do in a situation like that?

We camped that night on the shore, roasted a mackerel in a beachy fire, conversed in nonsense rhymes, and fell asleep laughing. It was one of the most delightful days I have ever spent.

An unpleasant encounter

A few days later, Jingly’s maid summoned me to the parlour. This seemed unduly formal. Jingly was sitting on a hard chair, with a long face.

"I had a visit from a woman this morning," she began. "Her name is Opsibeena. She is pregnant, and she claims that you are the father. She demands to eat quince with you. Surely this could not be true?"

"Probably not," I admitted, remembering the fearsome woman from the Fidd.

"Probably!" snorted Jingly. "How about ‘certainly’?"

"Certainly," I said weakly.

"Do you mean certainly not?"

"Certainly not!" I was able to retort.

We glared at one another.

"She is from a village called Zemmery, and I believe you referred to something that occurred there, that you did not want to speak about."

"I still don’t," I told her. "It was too upsetting for me."

Jingly sighed. "I don’t feel that you are being honest with me."

"I am sparing you an ugly episode that you would prefer not to hear."

We argued at great length, about very little. I accused her of endangering my life by arranging the duel, which made her very angry. She claimed the umbrella was a harmless weapon, which could never kill a human. I referred to the hole in Damitry’s neck, which had it been one inch to the left, would have wounded his windpipe and surely killed him.

At one point, I found myself defending Jack Onions’ right to engage in loud disputes with Father Boulak, on the finer points of theology - whatever they might be.

I tried to lighten the moment by addressing her as the Akondessa of the Isle of Slugs, but she was far from amused.

She cast aspersions on the morals of my guide, saying she had been seen in the town behaving very familiarly with the young boatman. I defended Mazinta’s virtue.

"How do you know she doesn’t sneak off in the night, then?"

"It’s not possible – she would wake me – and usually there is nowhere to sneak off to."

"So you sleep with her, do you?"

"Of course. There’s very little space under a cinquus. We keep each other warm. She sleeps well, too – no tossing around or sleepwalking."

This turned out to be more than Jingly could tolerate. She had quite the wrong idea, and refused to listen to me. "I’m afraid that sounds like nonsense, Mr Lear," she said. "And not very pleasant nonsense, at that."

She criticized me for not bathing with her the other day at the Isle of Boshen. "You must not be so stuffy and English," she commanded: "We are in Batrony now." My riposte was that at least I had bothered to learn the language, unlike certain people who could not even pronounce their own servants’ names. She responded by asking if I had ever heard of a nickname, and claiming that I had no sense of humour. She called me by hurtful epithets, such as "cad" and "rotter" and "bounder."

Before we knew it, we had cursed one another, and I was to leave forthwith.

How did that happen? I wondered sadly, as I packed my things to move to the inn for the night. I had decided to leave Coromandel the next morning, but first had to find my guide, who was nowhere to be seen.

At the inn, a letter was delivered to me, in a large pink envelope: a rambling missive from Jingly, wishing me well, regretting our disagreements, and so on – almost inviting a rapprochement. But I was firm. There could be no going back: I could no longer face her. My duty, of course, was to reply, but I did not want to write another solemn letter. So instead I drew a series of pictures, illustrating our exploits in the last few weeks, and penned a few comic verses to accompany them. While Mazinta (whom I had found at the wharf) delivered my package to Oeauiaia, my little malady attacked me, for the first time in months.

---

Chapter 17: West from Coromandel

Could it be July?

With a heavy heart, I left Coromandel this morning. Nobody was awake. On odd days of the month, the Coromandelusians always sleep in, and this was a very odd day. Nobody knew that I was leaving ­ except of course my guide. When I told her yesterday that we were to depart today, she asked no questions, but went off to find my cinquus. It had been pastured at a farm just out of the town, and she rode it back at dead of night. Before it was light, we quietly crossed the town square and set out on the so-called coastal road ­ which in reality goes nowhere near the coast (too bleak), and is no road, but a dishevelled track.

We began by crossing a low hill, covered in dead grass, scattered with large toadstools, each about the size of a dinner plate. From the top of this hill we could see the junction of the north-western and western roads from Coromandel. From half a mile or so away, I saw a small building, and a man jumping up in the air. As we approached, he jumped down instead of up. At the junction he was lying prostrate on the ground.

No! I groaned ­ on seeing the hole through his neck where a stick had once been.

"This is not a godly man at all," said the small building. "Look how the sinner lies!"

"Well, fancy meeting you here, Jack!" said I brightly. "So this is your parish now, in the middle of nowhere."

"I was waiting for you," he sighed. "I trust you havenıt forgotten your promise to help me leave this accursed country. And this ­ " he gestured at the prostrate man.

The other man jumped up, confirmed my fears. "Damitry!" I exclaimed.

The scoundrel hung his head low, and whined and bowed. "I beg rose to apologize dittany for my myrtle earlier violet behaviour nasturtium," he began, using the "flowery" mode of Batronian speech.

I stared to the north-west. Jack Onions was on my south-west, Damitry on my north-east. Ignoring both of them, I made a speech. "I tansy thank you both for your rosemary attentions," I announced. "Notwithstanding, I have with me a perfectly capable guide, and I must rush back to Kitezh, because I am due to meet my friend Husey Hunt in edelweiss Switzerland."

"I shall protect you all the way!" declared Jack. "Even from those Lutherans!"

"And on what ship do you propose to leave this island?" Damitry asked.

I had the measure of this fool. "I know that you left," I pointed out, "since I found you in Egypt. If you can leave, so can I."

"In that case, you need my services, to show you how to leave," was his riposte. "You must visit the Patrakond first, and I shall take you there."

"And how did you both know I was leaving? And how I would be here?" I demanded.

"Rumours seep," said Jack.

"And when your cinquus was heard clomping through the streets of Coromandel in the middle of the night..." Damitry continued.

I sighed loudly, and pointed out I had neither food nor water for them.

However, as Jack quickly reminded me, I had forgotten that he (being dead) was on a diet of nothing. And "Water!" said Damitry, pointing at the sky. "Thereıs plenty of that on the way."

A minute later it descended on us ­ the first rain in weex. I fumbled in the basket under the cinquus and finally found my umbrella. Mazinta had already pulled the hood of her cloak over her head. Damitryıs hair, oiled into its question-mark shape, collected the rain: it was drawn up into the tip of his question mark, which steadily dripped behind him. And of course Jack Onions had a sound roof on his church.

"What are you doing with that gun?" Damitry asked, shaking with fear (or perhaps with water). "Are you killing birds again?"

I realized that the ignoramus still had not understood the primary function of an umbrella, and demonstrated it to him. At the end of the demonstration, I clicked the little spring on the handle, to keep the umbrella closed.

"Now you have shot a bird!" Damitry exclaimed.

I didnıt believe him, and didnıt want to look upward because of the heavy rain. We moved slowly on the muddy track, and the rain poured down unceasingly.

"Beware!" shouted Damitry.

A second later, a great weight struck my umbrella from overhead, pushing it down onto my head, hurting my hat.

"A nupiter piffkin," said Mazinta from behind me. "It is stuck on the spike of your umbrella."

"Marvellous!" I said.

"You shot it!" Damitry accused. "It has a hole right through its neck ­ just like me." He put a finger in his neck-hole, and made a rude bugling noise.

My umbrella was trying to overbalance, perhaps even bend its shaft. The bird was a heavy one. Mazinta persuaded the cinquus to stop, and stood precariously on its back, trying to pull the bird off my umbrella spike. She soon fell off, landing on Damitry and knocking him off balance. He stumbled against Jackıs church, damaging one of the panels. Jack swore at him, using a very rude word that I had not heard since leaving England almost a year ago. It almost made me feel homesick.

Eventually Mazinta removed the marvellously golden bird from my umbrella. What luck, I thought! To find another nupiter piffkin ­ even if I had inadvertently killed it. I felt a little sorry for the bird, and composed a short song about it:

A nupiter piffkin named Della
fell onto a spiky umbrella.
Though it waggled and bit
it was caught on the spit,
the poor little piffkin named Della.

"Why Della?" Mazinta asked. The wench does not understand poetry at all. When I explained that it was a diminutive of Coromandel, she was mystified.

The rain stopped, and seizing our chance, we paused for tea and muffins. Muffins! I had not seen such a sight for almost a year. Even Jack, on his extreme diet, seemed interested. "Where did these come from?" I asked Mazinta. "Did you buy them in Coromandel last night?" She laughed. "No, Oeauiaia made them. Jingly taught her to cook this strange English food."

Though they looked perfect, they tasted nothing like any muffins I have ever eaten. Damitry refused to touch them, declaring them English trickery.

A tiny wind came up, and most of the muffins blew away, dancing helter-skelter over the sodden brown grass, like flower-petals. Looking down at my half-eaten muffin, I realized it was hollow: nothing but a thin outer crust.

"I could have eaten one after all," said Jack sadly ­ whereupon he began a long sermon.

In view of that contretemps, I decided to tie the nupiter piffkin on the cinquusı head, as a hat. On the bird-bearing cinquus, we continued fearlessly. Jack stumbled far behind, arguing with Damitry. I was all in favour of such an arrangement.

The night was a difficult one. Jack kept me awake every five minutes, sighing loudly while looking for non-existent enemies and brigands. Damitry snored like a horse, and the clouds above us constantly woke me with their continual crashing into one another. Mazinta, as usual, slept through it all, quite unconcerned.

We had travelled a long way, that first day out of Coromandel. Partly that was because I was being unkind to Jack and Damitry, trying to outdistance them on cinquus-back. Though Jack could take only small steps inside his church, he never seemed to stop. Damitry, I suspected, was cheating, though I could not work out how. Today, I resolved, I would redouble my efforts to lose them, though it was a pity that the hills were so barren and the track so empty. If only we could reach a village, we might better evade them.

In mid-morning, the rain began again. The countryside became even rockier, and even more uninhabited. Not even dead flowers dared live here. The bleakness matched my mood. Nor was there anything we could eat: Oeauiaiaıs muffins had all blown away.

Late in the afternoon we came over a low pass and found ourselves immediately in a large village. Somehow it seemed familiar ­ but in Batrony, as elsewhere, most villages are similar to most others. Children were everywhere. As soon as they saw our retinue ­ the man and girl on a cinquus with the head of a large bird, the walking church, and the man with question-mark hair ­ they ran away, screaming in terror.

Within a few seconds, all the shops were barred up, doors slammed tight, and women were screaming. But what were they screaming? I listened carefully.

"...The blue monster! ...triboldies!"

"I think you are the blue monster!" Mazinta told me, pointing at my nose. I had told her nothing about my days as a bandit, but she seemed to guess.

"Have you been here before?" she inquired.

"I donıt remember," I shrugged.

"Let us try the next village," she suggested. "Perhaps no blue monster has robbed it."

"Be ye not afraid!" boomed Saint Aidanıs church below us. We quietly left, hoping that Jack, in mid-sermon, would not notice. Damitry had fled.

In mid-afternoon we found another village. I hoped it might be more hospitable, but there was no sign of life ­ except for a priest in a basket, standing in the street. Was everybody else in hiding? Could word have travelled so quickly? I looked around for Jack and Damitry, but (luckily) nor was there any sign of them.

Nearby, I noticed a café, and drummed on its door. That priest was watching us, without a word. "Excuse me," I called to him. "Can you tell me where I might find food?"

He was silent. Perhaps he was thinking. If so, perhaps he was not thinking about my question, because he did not answer.

We approached him. In the darkness of the priest-basket, only his eyes were visible. "Excuse me, sir!" I called out ­ taking the precaution of holding a hand over my nose, in case it was still blue. Still, he ignored me, staring with those glassy eyes.

"Do you suppose he is meditating?" I asked Mazinta.

"No - he is dead." She was carrying a large wooden spoon to help ward off miscellaneous dangers, such as Damitry. She swung this spoon around her head, and hit the priest-basket hard. It fell over.

I was about to scold her, expecting an angry rejoinder from the priest. But he had no feet. We examined this phenomenon. The priest-basket was empty - except that in the face-hole, two glass eyes lay, suspended on thin strings.

"You should wear this basket," Mazinta advised, "so they will not recognize you."

I could not see how it was possible to wear a priest-basket on cinquus-back, but tried it anyway. With the foot of the basket resting on the cinquusı back, at the level of my waist, the top of the basket was far above my head. However, because these baskets have a swing-door in the centre ­ through which the priest can accept alms ­ I found that I could pull the door back and see out.

Mazinta laughed. "You look terrifying," she pronounced.

So we rode on and on, becoming hungrier and hungrier. Not a soul was to be seen. When we reached the top of a hill and saw the bleak west coast for the first time, we were immediately blown backwards. To move forwards, the cinquus had to turn itself back to front. I reminded myself that the reason for choosing this route had been speed, not that we should see any towns. My conjecture had been correct, and we were making excellent time. However, I had not envisaged starving.

"Oh Gullet," I told it. "May I express my feelings of sympathy."

All around us was the same bleakness - dead grass, occasional large dead toadstools and small dead trees, all growing sideways with the wind. It was raining again, also sideways, and the tar-smeared ceiling of the priest-basket did not keep me dry at all.

As soon as night fell, we camped under the cinquus. I tried to sleep, but could not. I have never felt so hungry in my life. But my guide did not seem bothered at all.

"How much longer can we survive?" I demanded.

"Donıt worry," she said. "We must come to a town soon. Maybe in a few days."

It was still raining. In the middle of the night, huddled under the cinquus, I was woken by distant sounds of rampaging. Was that horse-hooves? Was that a blood-curdling scream far away? I almost welcomed it. I rolled a little onto my guide, and woke her. When she had stopped complaining, I asked if she could hear the distant sounds.

"No," she said. "You are imagining this. It is only rain." And she went straight back to sleep.

A few minutes later, there it was again, louder than ever.

Mazinta was already asleep. I shook her shoulder, and she complained even more loudly.

"Do you hear that?" I demanded.

"Of course ­ men arguing."

She was right. They came closer, following the same path as us, and must not have seen us in the rain, as they went straight past. It was Damitry and Jack, I was sure, and they were arguing in some language I did not recognize. How dare they! I thought ­ and restrained myself to be silent. There were other voices, too: they were travelling with at least two other people. I welcomed the news: now they would no longer bother us ­ specially as they seemed to be travelling in the opposite direction. I hoped they were not looking for us.

I lay awake, pensive and regretful, replanning my life. None but Guillaume de Cavuchonne and Damitry had ever left this island: what if I too were unable to leave? I decided I should return cap in hand to Coromandel, and beg Jinglyıs forgiveness ­ for she could not leave either. Weıd live together, the closest of friends. The price would be that I would have to tell her about Zemmery, and she would turn it into nonsense, to hurl at me now and again. We should be all but married.

As I contemplated this prospect, day broke and the rain stopped. Faint with hunger, we set out again, and shortly met a pair of travellers: two men wearing toadstools for hats. Mazinta asked about Damitry and Jack, but the travellers admitted nothing. "Perhaps at Shchyphth," they said: it was a town, close by.

"Is there food?" I asked. They looked at me oddly, but did not answer.

Shchyphth

Hungrily we entered Shchyphth ­ which I had not known about, as it was not shown on Guillaumeıs map. This is a holy town. Pilgrims come to it from great distances ­ not along the barren track we had followed, but on another road, which coes over the hills from the Great Gromboolian plain.

The streets of Shchyphth were thronged with people - or not-quite-people. In a few minutes I saw:

• a man with a crocodile head, though not green. He had ankles, and long feet, but no body or arms.
• people who stood up not straight but curved to the left and right, because their legs and bodies were crooked.
• a man with three noses, each above the other.
• several people with long pointed nex, and noses that curved to their feet.
• a woman with a fishıs head; her blue lips were surprisingly becoming.
• a man with a drawer in his stomach. He was buying a duck in the market. I watched him pull the drawer open, take out some coins, and close the drawer again. With its leather handle, it was almost inconspicuous next to his leather jerkin.

I have never seen so many deformities in my life, not even in Kitezh. It was most gruesome - and I am no lover of grue. Had I not smelled newly baked bread, Iıd have left immediately. Following my nose, I found a café, selling long baguettes. After disposing of several of these, and felt better immediately. But how did there come to be a French-style café in this little town? The owner even looked French, with reddish hair and freckled face. I spoke to him in French, but he did not understand. His great-grandfather, he told me, had been a sea-cook, shipwrecked on Batrony, from a foreign country that he, Gihomay, could not remember. The bread-making skills had been passed down for several generations.

While I spoke to Gihomay, Mazinta travelled through the market, buying enormous quantities of food, and packing them into the panniers below our cinquus. Many people looked on with interest, conjecturing about the golden bird that the cinquus wore as a hat.

To avoid any risk of approaching Zemmery Fidd, I chose the western road, to the valley of the hermits: the destination of the pilgrims. This was a busy road, dotted by stalls selling food. After all those baguettes, I was already feeling bloated.

Chankly and its Bore

We came to the valley of the River Dargle, where the mushrooms grow tall. Not here the tiny dinner-plate-sized toadstools of the hills west of Coromandel, but good solid mushrooms, with stalx as thick as my legs, and heads a yard or two across. As we descended into the steep valley they became larger still. Eventually, along the banx of the Dargle, the round mushes were the size of a room (hence the name, I guess) ­ or one of those round churches. Their trunx were as thick as trees, and perhaps forty feet high. Many of the trunx had homilies carved on them. Every mushroom had a small crowd of pilgrims below it, pick-nicking, dining on small fish and foul-smelling tea.

A small crowd sitting beneath one of the largest mushrooms greeted us in a very friendly way, so we stopped there, and drank some of their tea. It tasted much the same as the gritty soup. I was far from hungry now, but they were pressing food on me because I was still dressed as a priest. I did not have the heart to tell them otherwise. They wanted me to bless their party. This is done by sneezing, and as the tea was extremely sneezy, I was able to oblige.

While they all cheered humbly, I felt a strange movement on my back. Was it an insect between my basket and my waistcoat? I moved one hand inside the tight space of the basket to feel my back, and as I did so, my entire basket was lifted in the air above my head.

My new friends gasped in horror at the sight of my person (I did not know then that it is Not Done to see a priest enter or leave his basket), and averted their eyes. Mazinta, looking upwards, showed me what was happening. The basket was suspended from a large fish-hook, attached to a white rope, which led to the top of the mushroom. An unearthly cry of triumph sounded from the skies.

"The hermit has stolen your basket," somebody said.

"You will need to climb up there and pay him, to get it back," said an old man.

"Or knock him down," said a younger man.

While they argued, another white rope came down, with another large hook, which lifted their teapot aloft by its handle. They grabbed at it, but too late. It disappeared over the side of the mushroom, to join my basket.

People were pushing at me to climb the mushroom, showing me the footholds carved in the trunk, and pointing out the trapdoor at the top.

Though I am not normally afraid of heights, this height terrified me. I invited somebody else to climb up and rescue the teapot and basket.

"It must be you," a woman said. "You are a priest. He will respect you. He would toss us down - like that."

She pointed to a nearby mushroom, on top of which two men were altercating. One ruffian, in a shabby white gown and long white beard, was trying to push another to his death. Both were standing at the edge of that exceedingly tall mushroom. At last, one succeeded in pushing the other off. An excited gasp came from the crowd. Now I understood the attraction of this valley: the entertainment of warring hermits.

The second hermit was falling head-first, his arms flailing out. At first it seemed that he would crash onto the rox below, but his flight changed direction, and he dived head-first onto a smaller mushroom ­ about the height of an apple-tree. A second later he bounced up again, then back down onto the small mushroom. He lay on its crown, and immediately pretended to sleep. A cheer came from the crowd.

While we were all watching this spectacle, our cinquus decided to be hungry. As there was no grass here, it began to chew the trunk of the large mushroom we had been sitting under. The mushroom trunk must have tasted good, because the biting noises were very succulent. I did not realize what was happening until I heard a shout from above. The mushroom was leaning at a strange angle. The teapot fell off and struck the ground, bouncing a little. As it was made of woven straw and fish-fur (like most teapots here) it was little damaged. My priest-basket also seemed ready to fall, but the hermit was shouting rude imprecations and holding it tightly.

The cinquus looked up, slightly puzzled by the commotion, moved around to the side of the mushroom, and resumed its meal, taking delicate little bites. It was even more puzzled a few minutes later, when the trunk snapped, and the mushroom toppled to the ground. The cinquus continued to chew at the broken trunk, ignoring the commotion that had broken out. The trunk had fallen on the old man and knocked him to the ground. The edge of the falling mushroom had trapped a young child by the waist, and the hermit who lived on top of it had made an immense lunge into mid-air and landed on top of the sleeping hermit on the lower mushroom. This caused its trunk to bend alarmingly before springing back and flinging both hermits into the Dargle: a shallow but rocky river. As they scrambled out, cursing, kicking one another, and rubbing various sore spots, our cinquus tired of that particular mushroom, and decided to try another: the taller mushroom from which the hermit had been flung.

The old man on whom the mushroom trunk had fallen seemed to be dying. Much shouting was going on: some of it by my guide. A boy came to me, dragging the fallen priest-basket behind him, inviting me to put it on. Actually a priest-basket is not "put on" but climbed under. It is then an interesting exercise to right oneself ­ not unlike a beetle squirming upside-down. After several attempts, I managed to stand up in the basket, and was immediately led to the dying man. They begged me to administer the last rites, but I had no idea how to do this.

Mazinta whispered to me "Put your arms through the head hole and wave them at the man."

I managed to do this, making gentle swimming motions with my forearms. Everybody was murmuring with approval, before I realized what she had said. She had spoken to me in English! The minx! I had no idea that she had any command of English, apart from the odd word I had taught her. Naturally, she had spoken in English because it Would Not Do for a girl to tell a priest how to administer the last rites.

"Did you learn that from Lady Jingly?" I asked, knowing that the crowd would not understand a word.

"Not solely!" a voice boomed behind me. I looked around ­ as fast as was possible inside a basket with only a face-hole ­ and found a small church addressing me.

"Jack!" I exclaimed.

"Allow me to assist!" he boomed, opening the door of his church and coming out in his great tomato-red habit.

The crowd gasped. A very senior priest!

Jack bent over the dying man, administering the Final Rite.

It must have been highly effective, because the old man jumped to his feet, swore rudely at Jack, and dashed away.

An angry murmur came from the crowd. Jack recognized it, and slipped back into his church before the stoning could begin.

But the stoning did not begin. Instead, women came to the church and knocked quietly on the walls: dozens of them, going knock-knock-knock. "Whatıs going on?" Jack shouted.

"Perhaps they want to come in," I hazarded.

Then they started knocking on my basket.

"It is praise," said Mazinta ­ again in English.

We were then invited to the most famous mushroom of all: the largest and most commodious, with a spiral staircase carved around its massive trunk, and a festoon of black creepers that served as handrails.

Dutifully, we climbed up the staircase. At the top of the staircase was a trapdoor, through which we emerged on top of the mushroom.

Its platform was as large as a small house. Into the flesh was carved a chaise-longue, on which the hermit reclined. This was the revered Chankly Bore. Now we had the honour of hearing one of his speeches ­ reputed to be the worldıs most boring. I could not understand a word.

"He made up this language himself," Mazinta whispered respectfully.

The hermit glared at her. Up here, nobody else was permitted to speak.

He droned on, in an argumentative way, waving his arms at the nearby hills when our attention seemed to flag. By dusk, there was no sign that he would finish. Fortunately, it was comfortable enough, sitting on the mushroom.

"Sometimes he talks without stopping for weex," Mazinta whispered. "He is a great speaker. Such a holy man!"

His shouts redoubled.

I glanced at Jack, who was looking as dead as he was able to.

Eventually all three of us must have fallen asleep. I woke at dawn, surrounded by soggy whiteness. Next to me, Mazinta was rubbing her eyes.

The Chankly Bore was still haranguing. This was a dramatic moment; his arms were waving violently, his ragged white sleeves slapping against his hairy arms.

"Thank you," I said, standing up. "But Iım afraid we really must go now."

I walked toward the centre of the mushroom, looking for the trapdoor.

He roared with rage, but made no move to stop us, as that would have entailed rising from his chaise-longue.

"This is not polite," Mazinta muttered, as I found and opened the trapdoor. Jack seemed to be asleep still, and I did not like to disturb the sleep of the dead.

I let her go down first, and quietly closed the trapdoor behind me.

At dawn, the valley below us had only a handful of pilgrims, some still asleep under the giant mushrooms, others making small fires.

At the foot of the Chankly Boreıs mushroom, my priest basket still lay on its side. However, Jackıs church had been disturbed: the door was open, and several people were asleep inside it ­ to judge from their protruding legs. It is not large enough to lie down in.

Our cinquus was tethered to the giant mushroom, the bark of which must have been too unpleasant to bite. We mounted it and sped off, before Jack could follow. Mazinta disapproved, feeling that Jack should be allowed to accompany us.

"He can catch us up," I said, brutally. Though a cinquus is far from speedy, Jackıs shuffle is slower still.

Behind us, some people were shouting. I looked around. It was the group of pilgrims we had lunched with yesterday. The old man was walking with a stick, but when he noticed me, he lifted it and waved it at me.

"They want us to wait," Mazinta explained. She poked the cinquus, slowing it to a crawl. The pilgrims caught us up and spoke rapidly to her. I couldnıt follow this particular dialect of Batronian, but she understood it.

"They are coming with us," Mazinta translated.

"Why?" I asked, crossly.

"They respect you very much, for saving the old man. Besides, they are going home to Booloobil, which is on our way. They would like to put their teapot and other things into our panniers, so that they donıt have to carry everything on their bax."

We waited a few minutes. I am not unkind. But when they arrived with their things, and Mazinta hopped down to help them stow the panniers, she found that they had already put many things in there ­ and had made the space by consuming some of our food supplies. She did not dare tell me this till much later.

It was very cloudy again today, with the clouds becoming darker and thicker in the afternoon. Though it hardly rained at all, the clouds were almost black. The road followed a small river, and in the afternoon became quite desert-like, with hardly a plant visible. On this side of the Chankly Valley, the pilgrims had all disappeared. There was no wind, and not even any birds. In this valley, quiet sounds were magnified: the slow breathing of the cinquus, the occasional sighing of its hat, the irregular clopping of its five paws, and the chattering of the pilgrim family that walked respectfully behind us. There seemed to be no need for me to wear the priest-basket, so I had lashed it on one side of the cinquus, where it creaked regularly.

I wanted to camp in a comfortable grassy spot near the river, with a tree to which we could tie the cinquus. But there was no vegetation at all, and eventually the family behind us started making a commotion, banging pots, pans, and other implements. It was almost pitch dark: the only light was provided by a field of luminous toadstools on the far side of the river. The pilgrim family made a fire, and cooked some of our food, in quite a tasty style. We camped on dusty ground, just above the river.

I was woken in the middle of the night by an altercation. In fact it was not the middle of the night, but the next morning ­ except that it had not morned. There was just the faintest lightening of the sky, far upstream and far downstream. I had never seen such black clouds overhead.

The sweet old woman from the pilgrim family was holding a huge leg-bone ­ a human one, I fear ­ in both hands, and was trying to hit Damitry on the head ­ but he was dancing around, taunting her.

"Go away, thief!" she shouted.

"Whatıs going on?" I called.

Damitry looked toward me, trying to work out who I was or where. In that instant, the little old woman brought down the leg-bone on his head. The leg-bone broke in half, and Damitry lay on the ground. When he scrambled up, she had a huge knife, and he was much warier.

I explained to her that he was guiding us to leave Batrony.

She snorted, saying that was not possible, and that this man was a notorious thief, who had been going to steal her grandmotherıs teapot in the dark.

"How can you say he was with you, when he was not?" she asked.

"Iıve been staying ahead," Damitry retorted. "I know you donıt like me any more. You caught up." He pretended to sob through the hole in his neck.

To maintain order, I gave Damitry a little food, and requested him to walk well behind us, keeping us only just in sight.

We continued walking beside the river, and reached an area where a few plants were growing. Soon it was raining hard - but from the clear sky, not from the dark clouds.

In a nearby village (the name of which means "Underhole") we were told that we were inside an enormous cave, a mile wide and a mile high. The clear patch was a hole through which they can see the sky, far above. People live down here for two reasons - the wind is less wild, and they can't fall through the holes.

On the far side of the town, the road forked. We paused, waiting for Damitryıs guidance. It was very dark and very wet, so it was a while before we noticed the small building. It sidled up behind me, and roared in my ear, "Happy Saint Florus and Laurus Day!"

"Saint who?" I asked, pretending not to be surprised. "And what day is that, pray?"

"Some time in August, I believe," said Jack "As I am dead, I no longer need remember these petty details."

I asked him where he was going (expecting him to answer left or right at this junction), but he told me that he was would leave the island with me, on the ship that the Patrakond would somehow provide. He would minister to my spiritual needs, but I would need to pay his stipend.

"This seems unlikely," I said, vague as usual.

Damitry arrived at last.

"Which way to Mount Oggodoggo?" I asked.

"Take the southern road - to the right. It is not far now ­ you will reach a door in the hill. I have no wish to see the Patrakond, so I shall take the other road, to Booloobil." The sweet old woman came up behind him, in the dark and rain, holding a large frying pan in both hands.

"Watch out!" I called ­ but too late. The pan came down on his head, and he fell into the mud. The sweet old woman again raised the pan over her head, but a holy arm came through a nearby church window, and seized the pan, taking it into the church.

It took the woman a few moments to work out what had happened.

Damitry leaped up. "Thank you so much, Mr Jack," he said, thumping his fists on the church in approval. "And as for you!" he said, pushing the woman down into the mud.

"Enough of this!" I declared, and kicked lightly on the flanx of the cinquus. It began to move, but Damitry was beside us in a flash, rubbing his head and demanding payment for his guidance. As I could not deny that he had led us here, I handed him a silver ducatoon. The sweet old woman, who had been battering St Aidanıs for the release of her pan, now ran screeching after Damitry, hurling rox at him.

Perhaps I shall stop referring to her as the "sweet old woman."

I spurred the cinquus on, following a path that led uphill in near-darkness. Had it not been for the hole in the mountainside far above (and now well behind) I should not have seen a thing. At least we had left our argumentative retinue far behind.

After an hour or so, the path abruptly stopped. In the light of my fading blue nose, I could make out a square paved area next to a cliff.

"This cliff could be a door," said Mazinta. "Why not knock?"

I knocked many times, in many places, but with no response.

"Perhaps they are out," Mazinta suggested. "We should wait."

She took my lamp from the basket, lit it, and searched for signs of a door. There were none. I cursed Damitry for leaving us.

From the path below us came an occasional jangling sound. It gradually became louder ­ and a small church appeared beside me.

"I am pleased to see that you are waiting for me," Jack observed. "Allow me to ring Saint Aidanıs bells!" From inside the church he banged the frying pan on the rock paving. It made a terrible sound, echoing around my ears. Downhill from where we stood, a door opened, light shone out, and a man shouted "Would you stop that terrible noise! Iım trying to sleep!"

---

Chapter 18: Return to Mount Oggodoggo

We were quickly admitted to Mount Oggodoggo: the surly doorman thought it inadvisable to refuse entry to one priest in a basket and another in a church. He passed us on to a junior vizier, who grumbled about us not having appointments.

"The Lord waits for nobody" Jack boomed. I repeated the message in Batronian, in as deep a voice as I could muster. I told the vizier I needed to visit the Patrakond. He was inclined not to pass on my request, but when I uttered a few nonsense words in Greek he was terrified, and agreed to send me to a higher vizier, passing on my name. I made him memorize it. In the Batronian syllabary it was "ki-nu-gu le-ah".

I was fortunate to receive an appointment for noon the following day. It helps to be considered as Royalty, I thought smugly. Little did I suspect what the Patrakond would say to me.

After the formal greetings, he warned me that he had a speech to make. I had only been going to ask his advice on how to leave, but waited politely to hear what he had to say.

"You should be aware," he said, "that I receive regular news from all parts of this island. I have been informed of your actions, and I am most disappointed. For example, I am told that you left Qyp the morning after a murder, without assisting police with their inquiries. Nobody was accusing you, but the loss of your witnessing power was most disappointing.

"There were two villages called Moppsikon and Floppsikon, that were finely balanced on two sites of a hill. After your visit, Floppsikon was destroyed."

"Then you visited Underednu, a venerable town that has laboured upside down for centuries. Two days after you left, the entire town collapsed into the Gromboolian River, causing huge floods upstream, and the loss of numerous lives.

"I heard reports of you at Zemmery, becoming involved with the local women. I don’t know if adultery is a sin in your dissolute country - but it certainly is in Batrony.

"Worst of all, you visited Limbo, despite being instructed not to. Furthermore, you brought back a deceased trouble-maker, who caused the villages near Limbo to lose many valuable stones. Your visit to Jelly Bo Lee resulted in two faithful citizens turning to jelly. You created religious disturbances in Coromandel, and almost killed a man at –––. You were exceedingly impolite to the Chankly Bore, who is one of my most revered holy hermits. In short, sir, your behaviour has been deplorable. I am amazed and shocked."

After listening to this speech, I was stupefied: it was hard to comprehend this catalog of misinformation that the Patrakond had been told. I was taken most aback by his severe manner (especially as he seemed not to have heard of my actual career of crime, as a member of a bandit gang, nor my theft of a priest-basket and grey suit from Pelagiboo). On the bright side, I pointed out that I had achieved many virtuous aims – such as helping to clear the Island of Slugs of its pests.

"I am informed," said the Patrakond haughtily, "that the Russian woman at Coromandel performed that useful task. However we did not really need that island, and we Batronians have always feared invasion by Russians. I am told that the Russians now have ships that move by smoke instead of sail. If those ships can leave Batrony, I fear we may become a Russian colony."

I pointed out that he was misinformed: Jingly Jones was staunchly English, and quite anti-Russian in her sentiments. (Though I made no mention of the pumpkins at Odessa.)

Ignoring me, the Patrakond continued: "I have also heard bad reports about your companions - such as that rascally fellow who pretends to be a priest but is stone dead."

I agreed with him.

"But that is your fault, for bringing him out of Limbo!" the Patrakond snapped. There is a good reason why we do not allow people to visit Limbo: they sometimes escape, and bring unsuitable ghosts with them."

He catalogued a further list of my crimes – including such trivia as an unpaid debt to a monastery at Kitoozh. Then he began on the crimes of my associates: in other words, Damitry, who had been captured yesterday on the road to Booloobil. He had been imprisoned for theft of the Patrakond’s son’s question-mark, which he had been concealing in his hair.

The Patrakond concluded, "I have been considering two possibilities. The first is to try you for your gross misdeeds. However, to execute a member of the royal family of a powerful nation would not be a wise move for this little country. Your fearsome navy would bombard us with roast beef and suffocate us all.

"Also, there is an old prophecy – that a noble visitor will arrive in a shipwreck, win an island, and assist the Russians to end my dynasty’s rule. Therefore, to ensure you are not this visitor, my second possibility will apply: you must leave this country immediately."

I sighed with relief, but thought it unwise to admit that was precisely what I wanted. "Very wise," I commented. "Because the United Kingdom possesses weapons that are even more terrible than roast beef. Haggis! Pea soup! The tea-cosy! Not to mention the umbrella!"

The Patrakond whispered to his advisers, who had never heard of such untranslatable weapons. They looked worried. Finally (bluffing, of course) the Patrakond nudged his personal laugher, who chortled "Ha ha ha" most insincerely.

"How am I to leave, then?" I asked, in the manner of a gentleman inquiring about train timetables. "I presume you can supply a ship, and calm the winds."

"You will fly," the Patrakond pronounced. "That is how criminals leave this country. Whether you will land again, who knows, but that evil Damitry survived."

I began to ask how he proposed to make me fly, but the Patrakond snorted out on his stilts, and the Grand Vizier explained.

"You have seen the flying monks," he said. "The same means is used, but without stones in the hem."

I was to be blown aloft by the north-west wind, he told me, and sent to the Crimea – about 100 miles distant.

I was terrified. I had not imagined this at all.

"You shall depart at dawn tomorrow," the Grand Vizier said. "Before the monks arise."

I was led back to my rooms, where I found Mazinta waiting. She was quite excited when I told her of my sentence. "I have heard of such flying," she said, and even begged to come with me. I told her that was not possible, and that she must return to her family. She was disappointed, but agreed to pack all my things. Everything from the cinquus-basket had been heaped up in one corner of the room. She noticed the large sheet of canvas we had used as a tent, and suggested that everything else could be sewn up in that.

"How could it fly?" I asked. "Even in such strong up-winds? All my papers, my paintings, my painting gear, my kitchen things, my clothes…"

I remembered my ride on the bombylios, which had been unable to rise up.

"Look!" she said, pointing at the high ceiling of this underground room. It was lit by a window carved through to the central shaft of the mountain, and in the daylight that came through I could see a heap of greenish rocks lying on the ceiling. This made no sense: heaps of rocks do not lie on ceilings.

She found one of my bird-nets, reached up to the ceiling, and pulled a piece of rock down. It was so heavy that I had to help her; it almost tore my net. The rock was small enough to hold in my palm, but it pulled my arm up into the air.

"This is what the monks really use," Mazinta said. "It is called ascensite. Don’t believe all that nonsense about weightless virtue. They sew small rocks like this into the tops of their habits. The other rocks, in their hems, stop them going too high. So all you must do is sew this canvas in the shape of a seal, and at the last minute, just before sewing the neck corner, poke in enough rocks that the seal floats in mid-air."

I was doubtful, but she went off to find a seamstress, and came back with three old women. In no time they had made a seal-shape, with all my things inside it – except a half-inch paintbrush and a tube of indigo paint. I used that to paint my name and address on the side of the seal, as well as a small Union Jack, in case it should be found by somebody who could not read, but recognized our flag. To add a little nonsense, I also painted the words LORD PRIVY SEAL on its side.

"What is to stop this from flying up to heaven?" I asked, as the seamstresses poked rocks into it. It had soared to the ceiling, and they were using ladders.

"You will be sitting on it – which will balance it," Mazinta explained. "That’s why it is animal-shaped – it will be your new cinquus."

"Della!" I shouted, suddenly remembering the nupiter piffkin. My bird had grown so large now that it filled almost the entire next room. The seamstresses took one look, slammed the door, and called for the taxidermist. There was no taxidermist (of course), so a doctor came instead. On examining the bird, he found the umbrella-hole in its underside, and through it began to insert rocks, carried by seamstresses from the next room. One rock was too heavy-light for the seamstress who carried out, so another had to hold her down.

In no time the bird was floating in mid-air. I made a rapid decision to ride that splendid bird into the skies, instead of the seal - which would be attached to it by a rope.

Mazinta approved of this plan: she thought it an excellent idea. I sat on the great bird’s back, while the doctor inserted more rocks until I was floating in mid-air. He then had the seamstresses sew up the hole.

Having then finished with my guide’s services, I paid her, with all my remaining Batronian currency. She was loath to accept the money, objecting to its weight. I asked her what plans she had. She was evasive at first, then admitted that her brother was waiting for her nearby, and would accompany her back to their village near Eggless. She astounded me by pointing out that I had already met her brother: the young boatman at Coromandel.

I wished her well, and embraced her warmly (the only time I have ever done so: I do not believe in familiarity with servants). She trotted gaily off, saying she hoped to see me again one day, in some far-away country. Not wanting to hurt her feelings, I agreed with her fantasy.

After a final Batronian meal of rice-pudding, I tried to sleep, but could not, for worry about what the morrow might bring. Were it not for my strong belief in nonsense, I could not have believed that I was due to leave this island on the back of a dead bird, borne aloft by rocks that fall up instead of down.

On the floor of my room I had noticed an unsmoked cheroot that had rolled into a corner, so had not been packed with my other things in the Lord Privy Seal. I decided to smoke it, first thing in the morning, to calm my nerves. I had just lit up when there was a knock at my door. I glanced at my fob-watch: only half past four. I looked through the window carved in rice, and confirmed that it was still pitch-dark outside. How dare they knock so early! I thought. I placed my cheroot on the windowsill, and reluctantly opened the door.

It was Jack Onions, in his tomato-red habit and tea-cosy. "I have come to bless you," he said. "In case you do not survive your flight."

"Perhaps I shall fly straight up to Heaven," I said, flapping my arms suggestively.

"Perhaps I shall accompany you," said Jack. He stared up at the ceiling – he had obviously heard about the ascensite. "And I have something to show you, that I did not want to tell you about before, in case you were angry."

He was carrying a large packet under his arm. Removing the outer wrapping he unrolled the contents on the floor. It was a British flag, a Union Jack.

"Where on earth did you get that from?" I asked.

"That nasty Englishwoman you were staying with – it was from her ship."

I was puzzled. "But she was shipwrecked, with only her umbrella and bagpipes."

"That is true – but many of her things were later found washed up on the beaches. Damitry sold this to me, and it has been a headrest and comfort for me all the way from Coromandel."

I was so astounded that I burst out laughing. Jack was not amused. He marched out, saying, "Very well, in that case I shall not offer it to you. I have another plan."

And now it is dawn, and porters have arrived at my door. I shall just poke this notebook inside the Lord Privy Seal, and set out on my new adventure.

[So ended Edward Lear's journal, as discovered in the KGB (formerly Okhrana) archives, by V. Xixonu in 2000.]

---

Chapter 19: Departure

The following notes by Edward Lear were found in an Admiralty notebook on board Lord Raglan's vessel Dryad, the day after Lear had disembarked at Varna. Evidently he had scribbled them down during the two days he was alone on the Dryad. This notebook is on file in the War Office Archive, together with a letter from Edward Lear asking for its return. Also on the record is the reply to that letter. That reply states:

Nov^r 11^th, 1854

My Dear Mr Lear,

I beg to inform you that no notebook of yours has been received in this office. Furthermore, you should be aware that all notebooks bearing Admiralty crests are the property of the Royal Navy, and that any material or symbols inscribed therein shall remain both Crown copyright and highly confidential.

I remain,
Your humble servant,
F. Z-W. Q. ffoulkes-Ptarmigan, Bt (per pro)

It would have been most embarrassing for Edward Lear to know that his outpouring of private thoughts was placed in the public archives, for all to read. His only consolation would have been that, because he wrote using the Batronian syllabary (though in English), nobody would have understood. And had they understood, perhaps they would have believed it to be in code.

At Sea, August (?) 1854

Though I have lost my faithful notebooks (Farewell, o noble books and fellow-sufferers!) - I must complete this journal, by recording the extraordinary events of yesterday.

At dawn, several minions had carried my nupiter piffkin and my Lord Privy Seal to the jumping-off point on the top of Mount Oggodoggo, and the Second Vizier was up early to farewell me. After all, they did believe I was a member of Royalty. Grandly I shook everybody’s hand, and bravely mounted my feathered steed. The vizier cast off the restraining rope, and I gently rose into the skies.

Below me, Mount Oggodoggo lay, gleaming white in the first rays of the sun. I could see the crater in its centre: the source of light to the rooms inside. But what was this: smoke pouring up through the crater? This was no volcano.

It was then that I remembered the smouldering cheroot that I had laid on the rice windowsill when Jack Onions arrived. "Oh, bother!" I thought. But perhaps the smoke was coming from a cooking fire – somebody’s breakfast burning.

As burned soup was no concern of mine, I looked in other directions. Della was a faithful steed, and Lord Privy Seal was following me faithfully. The rope was taut, and its nose was bearing up well. The Seal was a little below my level - perhaps because all my paraphernalia weighed more than I had thought.

Half an hour after departure, I could hardly distinguish the sea from the sky. Everything looked blue. I looked around again, to check the seal, and was surprised to see brownness: Mount Oggodoggo was smouldering, with occasional flickers of flame

Between my Seal and the smoke from the mountain I saw, in mid-air, a flag. This is not possible! I told myself. I looked again. It seemed to be catching up. I gasped. It was a huge Union Jack, fluttering in the heavenly winds. Sitting inside it, like a child in a hammock, was Jack Onions.

He was rising higher and higher, at length passing far above me. As he passed, he was waving his tea-cosy at me, and shouting. In the wind, I could hardly make out his words, which he repeated over and over again. Finally I realized what he was telling me: "Never say die!"

I waved at him - there was no point in shouting back; his voice is far louder than mine - and he waved back, still ascending.

To my right, I fancied I saw some mountain-tops. The Crimean Range, perhaps? Or merely pointed clouds?

I looked up again, to where Jack Onions might have been - but he was no longer there. He had disappeared into the brown cloud overhead, rising higher and higher: this time, perhaps to the heaven he had hoped for. Perhaps even to the Purgatory he had expected - though if Limbo is at sea level, why should Purgatory be higher? On such matters, my mind wandered aimlessly, and my trusty Seal followed close behind.

"Returning to his Maker," I said aloud. Intoxicated by the wisdom of my own words, I repeated them, at the top of my voice. As there was nobody nearby who might object, I sang a few songs.

My trusty umbrella was tucked into Della’s reins, in case of rain or attack by vultures. I had not wanted to admit last night how apprehensive I had felt, but this experience was quite delightful.

I wondered how much longer I should be airborne. The sun was high in the sky, so it must be close to noon. Perhaps a few more hours, I thought. Below me and to my right, I caught a glimpse of land.

As I rode the skies, I cast my mind back to Coromandel, and the month I had spent there with Jingly. It was the pleasantest month of my life: full of nonsense, delight, and the joy of friendship. Were I to expire now, I thought, my life should end happily. Then the memories of Opsibeena's arrival and Jingly's jealous anger and coldness returned, clouding my brain.

I glanced back at my Seal, and could scarcely see it. The cloud was not confined to my brain, it was all around me. Worse, I felt a sensation of falling. Suddenly, I was terrified. The rope from the Seal seemed to be pulling me down. My downfall was accelerating.

With alarming suddenness, the cloud around me disappeared above me, and below was a blue-grey ocean, already close enough for me to see occasional hungry wave-crests. To my right was a brownish, rocky coastline - probably the Crimea. Although it looked most uninviting, the sea looked more uninviting still.

Pulling at Della’s reins, I tried to steer my bird so that the winds would blow me closer to that coast.

I scanned the coast anxiously. It looked deserted. Clumps of greyish trees huddled in gloomy valleys. I could see a pale line, which might have been a road. On a flat section of a rocky coastal hillside, I saw a white building. It might have been a palace, surrounded by smooth lawns. Behind it, something caught the dim sunlight that penetrated under the cloud, and reflected it in my eyes. It could have been a glass conservatory, or perhaps a pool of water. Nothing else could shine so brightly.

"Why would I not rise forever?" I had asked the doctor yesterday. He told me that the ascensite gradually loses its upward power as it absorbs moisture, which usually occurs after some time inside a cloud.

It was now clear that I was descending. The detail of the ground and sea was becoming ever clearer. Though I was still over water, I was perhaps within swimming-distance of the shore. (Unfortunately, though, I cannot swim.)

Remembering my watch, I reached for it with my left hand, fumbling in my pocket. Disaster! I had forgotten to pin the chain. I barely caught a glance of the hands (exactly four o'clock) before the watch tumbled below me. Sadly, I watched it glinting in the sun as it turned - but soon it disappeared into a haze below me. So I did not see it fall into the sea. Perhaps it stopped half-way, buoyed up at that height by the winds. Perhaps it would be found by a Crimean peasant one day, high on the slopes of the mountain range on my right, the last remaining evidence of the existence of one Edward Lear, the Unknown Nonsensibilitudian... Like my body, my mind was sliding in the air.

Immediately following the loss of my watch, I felt myself begin to rise again. Evidently the sparrow's-weight of the watch had tipped the balance between rising and falling.

Then three terrible things began to happen.

The first was that the wind changed: no matter how I pulled the reins, I was moving away from the land, towards that sea which seemed to stretch forever. They call it the Black Sea, but this afternoon it was a hungry purple.

The second terrible thing was that, ahead and to my right, the land simply stopped. The coastline swung sharply to the right, turning back into what seemed to be a harbour. It was difficult to be sure of this, because the hills on my right were almost as high as I now was.

The third terrible thing was that my decline, briefly interrupted by the loss of my watch, had recommenced. I began to anticipate the prospect of a watery death. I closed my eyes, praying to my Maker.

I have never been strongly religious, I confess. When I first saw Limbo from the cliffs above it, I did not believe it could be an abode of the dead. But having spent several weeks there, I firmly believe it to be true. Goodness knows how it is possible, but that is not for me to understand. After my imminent drowning, would I find myself coming ashore like a sleep-walker in one of those gray ships? (At least they would not have far to take me, I thought.) Would I, till Judgement Day, loiter back and forth on those well-paved streets between the Cafeteria, the Theatre, and the Sleeping-House, neither eating the food, nor enjoying the scene?

While thinking on that topic (and realizing that, as I had been christened, I should not be permitted to enter Limbo) I felt a need to relieve myself - simultaneously with the realization that reducing my weight would prolong my time in the air. I fumbled with my spare hand, finally managing to undo my flies. How can I put what followed in decent language? I shall simply say that I made water, and immediately I felt myself rising up. But when I had finished, I was unable to do up my flies with the spare hand that I dared not take from the reins. I begged my Maker that I should not meet any ladies on landing. Mermaids welcome drowning men, I remembered, though perhaps I had not read that in the Bible.

Unlike Jack Onions, I have no expectation of Heaven, and I do not consider I have done anything evil enough to deserve Hell. Purgatory is what I should expect. If Jack Onions is correct - that Purgatory is very like Limbo except for the unremitting labour required in the former - I should not have a lot to look forward to. Would my memories of that Coromandel June with Jingly be preserved in Purgatory, or would I forget everything in the watery embrace of the mermaids?

I felt a slight tug from the Seal behind me. Wearily, I opened my eyes, and looked around. The Seal was now considerably below me, and felt as if it were pulling me down. The sea seemed very close indeed, though I could not yet see a single mermaid.

I glanced to my right, in the hope that land had reappeared. Instead, I saw a thin column of smoke, at the bottom of which was a large black paddle-steamer. My spirits rose unaccountably.

Then I looked to my left. Equally close was another ship. This was considerably smaller, with a large white sail. I fancied I saw tiny men in its rigging. If only I could reach it! But my trajectory seemed too low, and it appeared to me now that I should drown some distance short of it.

The Seal! I thought. Were it not dragging me down, I might reach the ship. Sorrowfully, I decided to abandon the Seal, in order to save my life. Perhaps it might float, and could be rescuable. With my free arm, I reached for my waist, and tried to undo the rope.

Though I was able to tug the rope up toward me, it was impossible to untie, with one hand. If only I had a knife! I thought. Then I remembered my trusty umbrella, I managed to loop the rope to the Seal over the umbrella's tip.

I wriggled my left hand up the shaft of that weapon, toward the clicker. With the feeble strength remaining in my right thumb, I clicked it.

There was a rush of rope through my left hand, burning my fingers a little - but suddenly I rose up.

The rope was cut, the Seal was slowly sinking toward the sea below - but now it seemed I was too high to reach that ship. The top of its mainmast was close, and I desperately needed not to fly over it. If I could land in the sail I might break my fall. I leaned well forward, and breathed a sigh of relief when my feathered steed began to point downward. I glanced at the three or four men in the rigging, but none had noticed me. Should I cry out? Would they hear me? And was that really a man riding a horse along the deck?

It was then I noticed the Union Jack. This was an English ship! Even if I did not survive, I was home. I felt a strange sensation of calmness. Nothing I could do would make any difference now. I closed my eyes, and waited for the end.

The next thing I knew, my thigh was struck an enormous blow, I was near-deafened by a sound like gunfire, and I found myself spinning rapidly. As I swooned with dizziness and pain, I sensed that I was wrapped in whiteness. Was it a shroud? Was it

[The Admiralty journal ends here, in mid-sentence.]