"Yes, Miss: the King's pet snap-dragon. He sits up there on his tower to keep watch, and when he sees anyone coming he bellows like that to give notice."
"Are you sure?" asked Margaret.
"Oh, yes, Miss. Quite sure."
"Well," said Margaret, "I'm very glad to know that. I've often heard the sound from the shore, and somebody told me it was the whistling buoy. Now I shall know next time. There he goes again!"
At this second bellow the Admiral woke up with a start. He cast a glance over his shoulder, and seeing how near they had come, he spun his chair round till it would go no further, when the boat immediately began to slacken speed.
It was still going pretty fast, however, and the cloud-wall looked so solid that Margaret and Frances could not help feeling just a little bit anxious lest the glass boat should be cracked when it ran against it; which it was evidently going to do, for it kept straight on its course.
But as the Admiral and the Crew were perfectly calm about it, they felt reassured, and presently the frail boat ran into the wall without a shock or a tremor. It just made a hole which closed up behind it—and there they were, unable to see out in any direction.
At the same moment there arose all round them, in front and behind and on both sides, a perfect clamor of barking, as though a hundred dogs were all barking at once and all trying to see which could bark the loudest and the fastest.
"Why! Where are they all?" cried Margaret, looking vainly about in every direction. "It sounds as though they were in the water."
"They are," replied the Admiral, smiling at her wonder. "They always bark like this when they hear the dragon bellow."