He could not, and I would not, speak.
CHAPTER IX.
How I grew weary of travel and resolved to settle down for a long rest. A quiet life however soon tires me, and I desire to set out again. Bulger’s opposition. How I deceived him. We take our departure. Encounter a terrible storm. Are shipwrecked on a beautiful Island. Made prisoners by the Round Bodies. Description of this strange people. We are condemned to die. Saved by Rōlâ-Bōlâ, the Roundbody Princess. More about the strange beings. The Princess falls in love with me. Preparations for marriage. The ceremony on the Great Plain. The sudden storm. Consternation of the Round Bodies. I lash Bulger and myself to a platform. The storm-king catches up the wooden structure and bears it away. Transported to the main land on the wings of the wind. We are gently dropped in a grain field not a thousand miles from home. Our unspeakable joy.
A GOOD MOTHER ROUNDBODY AMUSING HER CHILDREN.
At this period of my life I had firmly resolved to settle down and enjoy a good, long rest.
Bulger and I both needed it. We were tired of strange sights, strange lands and strange people.
“Why should we not,” thought I, “enjoy our world-wide fame?”
From the very ends of the earth, visitors flocked in thousands to my House Wonderful to see my treasures, my extraordinary curiosities, and above all, my remarkable dog, Bulger, the sole companion of my strange and eventful life, my guide, my friend, my counsellor, my all. Scarcely, however, were the valleys green again after a long and bitterly cold winter—so cold in fact that I drank nothing but iced tea for full three months, as it was utterly impossible to carry the pot from the stove to the table quickly enough to prevent its freezing,—than my thoughts turned to the pleasures and dangers of a roving life, and I longed to be up and off again in quest of new adventures.
As I roused myself from my reverie I found Bulger sitting at my feet with his kind, lustrous eyes fixed full upon my face. He had read my thoughts as correctly and easily as I might the words of a child’s primer, and as he saw that I was wide awake and in full possession of my faculties, he seized hold of my sleeve and whined most piteously.