"So—oooh! You've been knighted?" breathed Roger, peering round into the Captain's face,
"Ho pass the salt and ring the bell
And bend the knee to Sir Sam-u-el!"
"Sir Samuel Salt! Well, I'll be peppered!" gasped Ato, sinking down on the lower step of the palace which they had reached by this time. "Sir Samuel!"
"Yes, SIR!" boasted the Pirate, rubbing his hands together, "but come on, step lively, boys; how long'll it take you to pack up and heave your dunnage aboard? Mustn't keep a Knight of Oz waiting, you know!"
"Keep you waiting?" Suddenly and determinedly, Ato rose to his feet and shook his finger under Sammy's nose. "Keep YOU waiting? Why, we've been ready and waiting for this voyage three years, eleven months, twenty-six days and twelve hours. Where've you been, you great lazy son of a sea-robber?"
"Four years?" choked the Pirate, falling back in real consternation and dismay. "Never! It's never been four years, Mates. Why, I've scarcely had time to sort out the shells and specimens we picked up on the last voyage, and to fit out the Crescent Moon for the next."
"Where have you been?" repeated Ato, wagging his finger sternly.
"Why, home on Elbow Island, of course. Where else should I have been?" muttered Samuel, looking distinctly worried and crestfallen.