Left alone, Pina the First soon forgot her royal condition in contemplation of the lovely prospect before her. As she gazed over the sand, and across the lagoon, and out on the gleaming sea, her thoughts assumed the wings of the morning and flew away over the mighty ocean to old England. Sadness filled her heart, and tears her eyes, as she thought of a mild little mother who had, since the departure of her three children, been reduced for companionship to a huge household cat, and who would ere long be wondering why letters were so long of coming from the dear ones who had left her.
Pauline had a vivid imagination and great power of mental abstraction. She summoned up the image of the little mother so successfully that she felt as if she actually saw her knitting her socks, sadly, with her head on one side. She even heard her address the cat (she was accustomed to address the cat when alone), and express a hope that in the course of a month or six weeks more she might expect to have news of the absent ones. And Pauline almost saw the household cat, which occupied its usual place on the table at the old lady’s elbow, blink its eyes with sympathy—or indifference, she could not be quite sure which. Then Pauline’s wayward thoughts took a sudden flight to the island of Java, in the China seas, where she beheld a bald little old gentleman—a merchant and a shipowner—who was also her father, and who sat reading a newspaper in his office, and was wondering why his good ship Flying Fish—which was bringing his children to him besides a quantity of other goods—did not make its appearance, and she plainly saw the look of disappointment as he threw the paper down, exclaiming, “Odd, very odd, but she must turn up soon.”
Pauline saw nothing more after that for some time, because her eyes were blinded with tears.
Then Queen Pina cheered up again, for she thought that surely a ship would soon pass the island and take them off. As this last thought became more definite (for Pina was very young and hopeful) her eyes dried and permitted her to observe her kingdom more clearly.
The Prime Minister, she observed, was still busy on the shore, and, from his frequently stooping to pick up something, she argued that the affairs of State in that quarter were prospering.
Presently, from the midst of a mass of reeds not far off, there arose a shout, easily recognisable as that of the army, which was followed by cries of a stupendous, yet extremely familiar, kind. Pauline started up in considerable haste, and a moment later beheld the chief authors of the noise burst from the clump of reeds in the form of a large sow and a troop of little pigs.
They were evidently in a state of wild alarm, for, besides squealing with a degree of intensity possible only to pigs, they ran in such furious haste that they stumbled over sticks and stones in reckless confusion, scrambling to their feet again in such a hurry as to ensure repeated falls, and, generally, twirling themselves and their tails in a manner that was consistent with nothing short of raving madness.
Little wonder that those creatures acted thus, for, close on their heels, gasping and glaring, the army burst forth and fell on them—literally fell on one of them, for Otto in his anxiety to catch the hindmost pig, a remarkably small but active animal, tripped over a root just as he was about to lay hold of its little tail, and fell on the top of it with fearful violence. The mechanical pressure, combining with the creature’s spiritual efforts, produced a sudden yell that threw the cries of its companions quite into the shade. It might have sufficed to blow Otto into the air. Indeed, it seemed as if some such result actually followed, for, after turning a complete somersault, the boy was on his feet again as if by magic; but so also was the little pig, which, being thus forcibly separated from its family, turned aside and made for the main thicket. To cut off its retreat, the army made a sudden flank movement, headed the enemy, grasped it by the curly tail, and sought to lift it into his arms, but the curly tail straightened out, and, being exceedingly thin as well as taper, slipped from his hand. Need we say that the little pig came to the ground with a remonstrative squeal? It also rolled over. Otto, unable to check himself, flew past. The pig rose, diverged, and resumed its headlong flight. Otto doubled, came close up again, “stooped to conquer,” and was on the point of coming off victorious, when, with a final shriek of mingled rage and joy, the enemy rushed through a hole under a prickly bush, while the discomfited army plunged headlong into the same, and stuck fast.
Meanwhile the rest of the porcine family had found refuge in an almost impenetrable part of the thicket.
“Pork, your Majesty,” said Otto, on returning from the field of battle, “may at all events be counted as one of the products of your dominions.”