"Now, I must go back for the others," he wheezed hoarsely. "But we're free—free my girl—and all of our troubles are over!"
Trot smiled faintly, too wet and shaken to say a word and, with a joyous flirt of his tail, Orpah disappeared under the waves. But the warm sunshine and bracing breeze soon restored Trot to herself. Wringing out her dress and shaking back her hair she began to look eagerly for the return of Orpah. She wondered just how she had reached the bottom of the lake and whether Benny and the Scarecrow had been blown there with her. And before she had answered this question to her own satisfaction, the hard head of the stone man appeared suddenly above the water. At each step he rose higher and Orpah, swimming joyously at his side, waved gaily to Trot. Benny was carrying the Scarecrow in his arms, and when they reached the little girl's rock, the straw man gave a feeble cheer.
Benny had lost his high hat and umbrella and was covered with clinging sea weeds, but at sight of Trot, safe and sound upon the rocks, his stone lips parted in a broad smile.
"Well," rasped Benny jovially, "This is better than being shades, but let's go in where it's dryer."
"By all means," coughed the Scarecrow. "I feel like a sponge!" As Benny came opposite, Trot, standing on tip-toe, put her arms 'round his neck. Striding easily over the jagged rocks, the stone man carried both Trot and the Scarecrow far up on the beach. The mer-man had recovered his crutches by this time, and hobbled happily along behind them.
"I'm glad you're not a real man yet," muttered the Scarecrow, as Benny put him carefully down on the sand, "A real man could never have walked along the bottom of a lake, nor saved us from being shadows."
"Did I save you?" asked Benny, easing Trot down beside the Scarecrow.
"Of course you did!" Dragging himself up beside the others, Orpah beamed on the former statue. "When you refused to melt into a shadow, Ozeerus turned the blue ray higher and higher till it exploded and blew out the side of the cave and carried us all to the bottom of the lake."
"But where are the Ozure Isles?" questioned Trot, standing up and shading her eyes with one hand.
"Back there," explained Orpah, waving toward the west. "That blue ray blew us clear across the bottom of the lake to the mainland."