“And if our hair stopped falling and we fell on, we’d be scalped!” puffed Grampa hoarsely. “Besides there isn’t any water, so there’s nothing to do but fall!”
“Stormy weather! Stormy weather!” predicted Bill gloomily. “Look out below, look out, look out, look out!” As the weather cock came to his last look out, the air grew suddenly lighter, the speed of the four fallers increased and next thing, with a great splash and splutter, they had plunged into a deep underground lake. Blowing like a porpoise, Grampa rose to the surface.
“One drop in water,” choked the old soldier and, treading water furiously, he began to look around for his little army. In the dim green light he could see Urtha floating like a tiny island of flowers on the top of the water—her fine spray of hair spread out ’round her lovely little face. A short distance away Tatters was making frantic efforts to keep afloat but, with the iron weather cock and the enormous umbrella, it was a difficult business and every few minutes the poor Prince of Ragbad would disappear under the waves. Grampa himself, handicapped as he was by a game leg and so many weapons, found swimming a dreadful exertion and by the time he reached Tatters he was completely exhausted. He still grasped the wizard’s bottle in one hand.
“Wet—very wet!” The head of Bill appeared above the water and then went under, as Tatters took another dive toward the bottom.
“Grampa, I’m drowning!” gulped the poor Prince, reappearing for a second on the surface. It never occurred to the Prince to drop Bill or his father’s umbrella. Grampa himself had shipped so much water he had no breath to speak, but he flung his hand out desperately toward the Prince and, as luck would have it, it was the hand holding the wizard’s medicine.
“D—don’t drown!” begged Grampa, his eye fixed desperately on the green label. “Wait, there’s a cure for it.” Treading water again, he clutched Tatters by the hair and pressed the bottle to his lips. “One swallow and you’ll swim like a fish,” promised Grampa.
“My head’s swimming already,” muttered Tatters weakly. It was all the Prince could do to get the stuff down, for he had swallowed quarts of the lake already. Grampa was so interested in watching the effects of the dose that he forgot to move his feet and went down himself. But just as the water closed over his head he put the wizard’s bottle to his own lips, took a hasty mouthful and jammed in the cork. Immediately he bobbed to the surface and, with a great sigh of relief, saw Tatters floating on top of the waves, Bill perched precariously upon his chest. Grampa felt as buoyant as a cork and, using his gun as an oar, steered toward Tatters and Urtha and soon all three were bobbing along side by side.
“This medicine’s the only good thing that wizard ever invented,” said Grampa, sticking the bottle through his belt. “Feeling better, old boy?”
Tatters shook his head feebly. He could not help thinking how far out of their way they had fallen, and how very far they were from the Emerald City and even from Ragbad itself. He blinked hastily at the thought of Mrs Sew-and-Sew and the cozy red castle on the hill, and he hoped Pudge had remembered to feed his pigeons. Tatters himself never expected to see them again. Only Urtha seemed really to be enjoying the adventure. Her little flower face was wreathed in smiles and her lovely flower frock fairly sparkled with freshness.