The wind was fresh and strong, and my square sail worked to a charm.
At that moment a shrill, piping voice reached my ear.
“Little Man All Head! Little Man All Head! Where art thou? Come to me!”
The shrill, far-reaching tones of her voice attracted a hundred attendants. They seemed fairly to spring up out of the ground.
Pell-mell, with a wild rush, the stronger ones leaping over the heads of the less vigorous ones, they made for the river banks.
Alarm bells now sounded on every side.
Gongs and strangely-sounding horns and rattles called the people to the spot where the little princess had been found lying half unconscious on the greensward.
The sight of the half dozen sentinels stretched out here and there in the deepest sleep, the scattered drapery of my couch, the bed itself missing, all told too plainly the story of my escape.
All this time, my snug little craft was making good headway down the river, which grew wider at every hundred feet.
With one wild outburst of shrill, angry voices, the Umi-Lobas turned to pursue the fugitive.