“I’ll complain to the King of the heat; I’ll tell him how accustomed I am to outdoor life and sleeping in the open air with no covering, save the blue sky and twinkling stars; that I shall most surely pine away with inward wasting unless I be permitted to move my bed during the midsummer heat down by the river side, where the air is coolest and purest.”
King Gâ-roo listened to my request without the slightest suspicion that any idea of escaping from his domain was flitting through my mind.
In fact, he would have as soon expected to see one of his royal beds spread its drapery for wings and fly away to the mountains as to see it go flashing down the river with one of the sheets set for a sail.
So my request was granted at once.
My bed was moved down to the river’s edge, where one tent was raised to house me in case of a rain storm, and another to shelter the troop of guards which always kept at a respectable distance from me, and yet near enough to hop down upon me in about three seconds.
So far all had gone well. At first my plan was to launch my boat and make my escape in the night, but I was obliged to give this up, for I discovered that the guard was always doubled at night fall.
Escape, if I escape at all, then must be in the broad daylight.
Six of the Umi-Lobas soldiers stood sentry about my quarters from sun-rise to sun-set.
That they were armed it is needless to say.
But their tiny swords and pikes had no terror for me.