"'Well,' I said, 'I am rather grateful to him for carrying me safely here, and I should like to give him those peaches, but did not wish him to bite me in two while I was doing it.'
"So saying I went to the peach basket, where Bowser was vainly endeavoring to get the peaches out, and opened the fastenings, while he hopped around me on his huge legs and uttered his strange chuckling laugh. I picked out a few dozen of the ripest for the old lady, and let Bowser have the rest, which we left him swallowing greedily.
"They took me around to a spacious veranda, where a dark-skinned maid served us with delicious iced drinks, fruit and small cakes, and then the old gentleman told me about the Wonderful Plant."
CHAPTER XIV
"'You are no doubt wondering,' he said with a smile, 'who we are and what manner of oasis this is, and I am going to tell you about ourselves first.
"'To begin with, we are not fairies, but quite ordinary mortals, and we live here alone. We have no children, and no pets but Bowser, but we are never lonesome. Now Bowser is just a common toucan, and I found him on the ground under a big tree one morning, where a bad storm the night before had tossed him out of the nest. We brought him in and my wife cared for him, and the only reason he is so big is that he has such a voracious appetite and eats ten meals a day. In fact he is eating practically all the time, and I believe is still growing. I suppose his brothers and sisters might be as large as he if they could get enough to satisfy their appetites the way Bowser does. He would eat most families out of house and home, but as our store-room never gives out it does not matter. But although we do our best to feed him enough to satisfy his appetite we cannot cure him of stealing peaches. We are very sorry for the poor farmers whose orchards he raids, but in one sense it is rather a good thing, as it serves to keep people afraid of him, and he is our only watchdog.
"This desert around us was not always here. The whole valley was once much higher than now, and was a happy little kingdom where we all dwelt in peace and prosperity until the unlucky day when the Evil Magician came this way and swept the whole kingdom out to sea, drowning everyone, including the king and queen and their little son and daughter, and leaving nothing here but bare sand.
"'We were absent from home when it happened. I was a merchant, and had gone to buy a new supply of goods, and my wife accompanied me, otherwise we would have met the same fate as our friends and neighbors.
"'You can imagine the sight which met our eyes when on our return we came out at the head of the pass on yonder mountain and looked over the valley. At first we thought we must surely have lost our way and come upon some strange barren place, but on looking about we saw certain familiar landmarks which made it clear to us that a hurricane must have swept our kingdom away, and of course all our possessions.