"I am Mikas," said the third, who had a round face, a bulbous nose whose color was that of a ripe tomato, flapping pointed ears too large for his face, and a pair of perfectly round eyes.
"Yeah? But where am I?" Jenkins persisted.
"In the land of Gnat," all three piped in unison.
Slowly the brain-fog was clearing for Jenkins. The miracle of his landing safely was still not quite clear, nor could he understand the presence of these odd beings. But as reason returned to Jenkins, it told him something had happened which would perhaps be unexplainable.
He pointed toward the castle and said: "Who lives there?"
"Lucretia ..." they answered again in unison.
Now there's a familiar name, Jenkins thought, while at the same time a horrifying idea occurred to him. If it were Lucretia Borgia, he thought, then he might be dead. Suddenly, there was a spine-chilling roar, a vast crashing in the underbrush close by, and a tremendous boulder sailed by and disappeared over the lip of the chasm. Its crashing echoes could be heard for a long time afterward. When Jenkins recovered his balance, the gnomes had disappeared.
Jenkins' eyes narrowed in search of them, but after one look at the thick underbrush, he turned aside and began to search for a path leading either through the brush or down the steep sides of the cliff. There wasn't much choice, he discovered. In fact, there was no choice at all.
"Ho-ho!" a stentorian voice bellowed, seemingly from at his very heels. "Look what we have here!"