"Do you know where there is one?" he cried out. "You look as if—"
The Good Wolf stood up and shook his pink ear very hard—and then he shook his blue one. "Nothing flew out," said Barty. "I saw nothing at all."
"What flew out did not fly out here," answered the Good Wolf. "It flew out in the place where it was wanted—ten thousand miles away."
Barty caught his breath and clapped his hands. "I know something nice is going to happen," he shouted, "and it's something about a desert island."
"Get on my back and clasp your arms around my neck and shut your eyes," the Good Wolf said. "This is not a trifling matter."
Barty scrambled up joyfully and did as he was told. The Good Wolf's fur felt soft and thick when he laid his face against it. He shut his eyes tight and then just for a few moments he felt as if they both were almost flying over the ground. They went so fast, indeed, and the air sung so in his ears as he rushed through it that it made him feel drowsy and he soon fell asleep.
When he felt himself waking he was quite warm, as if the sun were shining on him. There was a sound in his ears still; it was not the rushing of the air but a sound like rushing of water, which he had never heard before. He had never seen the sea and knew nothing about waves except what he had read in the story of Robinson Crusoe.
He sat up and stared straight before him and his eyes grew bigger, and bigger, and bigger. He was sitting on a snow-white beach and there before him was spread the great blue ocean, and its waves were swelling and breaking into snowy foam, and rushing and spreading and curling on the sand.
After he had looked straight before him for quite five minutes he turned and looked round about him. What he saw was a curve of beach and some cliffs rising from behind it. And on top of the cliffs were big leaved plants and straight, slender palm trees which waved and waved like spreading green feathers.