"Never mind the saw. I still have my journal, and look what I caught!" puffed Samuel Salt, dragging himself up on the other side of the hippopotamus. "Ship ahoy, Mates, a live and perfect specimen of a jellyfish boy." Holding up his prize, Samuel smiled blandly, all his danger and discomfort apparently forgotten.
"Oh, my eyes, ears and whiskers!" quavered Ato, peering out of his net of seaweed. "Is it for this we've been scraping our noses on the sea bottom?" Nodding cheerfully, Samuel plunged the squirming and transparent little water boy under the surface, holding him there, as Nikobo swam slowly and painfully back to the ship.
CHAPTER 16
The Storm!
Tandy was so exhausted from his dreadful experiences at the bottom of the sea hole he spent the rest of the morning flat on his stomach on deck making lively sketches from memory of the City of Seeweegia. Of the sea hole itself not a sign nor vestige remained. The sea, tumbling through the breach made by Nikobo, had closed it up forever and ever. Ato had Roger fetch bandages and witch hazel down to the raft and it took him two hours to bind up the cuts and hurts of the faithful hippopotamus. Then climbing wearily up the rope ladder to the deck, he spent another hour rubbing himself with oil and liniment, muttering darkly about reckless collectors who got themselves and their shipmates collected.
"What would WE have done if you'd never got out of that air bowl?" scolded Ato, waving the bottle of liniment at the Captain, who was cheerfully changing into dry clothes. "You know I know nothing about navigation nor one sail from t'other."
"Ah—but what you know about sauces!" retorted Samuel, rolling his eyes rapturously. "Of course, I'll grant a ship cannot sail on its stomach, but if the worst had come to the worst, you could have left a note for the sails on the binnacle. 'If it comes up a blow, tie yourselves up.' Ha, ha! Tie yourselves UP!" Jamming his feet into his boots, Samuel blew a kiss to his still muttering shipmate and tramped down to the hold to settle his jellyfish boy in one of the large aquariums. The water boy, about half the size of Tandy, was a jolly enough looking specimen, but kept opening and shutting his mouth like a fish and staring anxiously from his captor to Mo-fi in the cage opposite. Whistling happily and unmindful of the cuts and bruises he had suffered, Samuel filled the bottom of the aquarium with pebbles and shells, put in several seaweed plants he'd fished up in the nets, and soon had the little stranger as happy and cozy as a clam. Giving him and Mo-fi a wafer of fish food, the Royal Explorer of Oz went above to have a look at the weather, for he did not like the way the ship was pitching.
