“You must have been badly frightened, though,” said Ananias.
“No,” said the Baron. “I laughed in the poor disappointed thing’s face, and with a howl of despair, he rushed back into the sea again. I made the best time I could back to the yacht for fear he might return with assistance.”
“I laughed in the poor disappointed thing’s face, and with a howl of despair he rushed back into the sea.” Chapter X.
“And didn’t you ever see him again, Baron?” asked Sapphira.
“Yes, but only from the deck of the yacht as we were weighing anchor,” said Mr. Munchausen. “I saw him and a dozen others like him doing precisely what I thought they would do, going ashore to search me out so as to have a little cold Munch for dinner. I’m glad they were disappointed, aren’t you?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Ananias and Sapphira, but not warmly.
Ananias was silent for a moment, and then walking over to one of the bookcases, he returned in a moment, bringing with him a huge atlas.
“Where are the Amphibian Islands, Mr. Munchausen?” he said, opening the book. “Show them to me on the map. I’d like to print the map with my story.”
“Oh, I can’t do that,” said the Baron, “because they aren’t on the map any more. When I got back to Europe and told the map-makers about the dangers to man on those islands, they said that the interests of humanity demanded that they be lost. So they took them out of all the geographies, and all the cyclopædias, and all the other books, so that nobody ever again should be tempted to go there; and there isn’t a school-teacher or a sailor in the world to-day who could tell you where they are.”