At this moment the boat ran through the cloud-wall and now the children could see what sort of a place the Floating Island really was.
CHAPTER V
THE COURT CRIER
They found themselves in a beautiful little bay of a bright green color, fringed all round with neat little, curly, white waves, all exactly four inches high and ten feet apart. "Like rows of tucks round the bottom of a dress," thought Frances.
But the island itself was what most attracted their attention. It was like a Japanese garden, with little green hills and little red footpaths bordered with white shells; with little lakes and little streams and little bridges; it was dotted all about with little houses painted all sorts of bright colors; and there were flowers—flowers everywhere. It was the prettiest place they had ever seen.
From all directions were little people running down to the pier to meet them; the excited dragon was jumping about on top of his tower, bellowing like a whole herd of milk cows at once; while all the dog-fish, with their noses sticking out of the water, came swarming from every direction, barking away—the great alarm of Periwinkle—as loudly as they could, and making such a racket that Margaret and Frances were obliged to put their fingers into their ears for fear of being deafened.
Seeing this, the Admiral jumped out of his chair, waved his arms, and shouted out, "King's guests! King's guests!" Whereupon, all those polite and well-trained dog-fish leaped out of the water, and standing on their heads, wagged their tails in welcome, sending into the air showers of spray which the bright sun turned into dozens and dozens of little rainbows. It was the prettiest thing you ever saw. The little girls were delighted.
By this time the speed of the boat had very much slackened, it was just gliding along with hardly a ripple toward the little wooden pier, painted white with red posts, where the bright-colored little people were standing in groups waiting for them. There were groups of little men and groups of little women and groups of little children, some of them dressed in pink and some in green and some in yellow and some in orange and some in white and some in purple—but not a single one in blue, as Frances was the first to notice.
"Do you see, Margaret?" she whispered. "There isn't one of them dressed in blue. Not one!"