though you used no warlike weapon at all upon him. He was cowed through fear of your magic, and that reminds me to demand from you an explanation. How did you do it, Inga? And where did the wonderful magic come from?'
Perhaps it would have been wise for the Prince to have explained about the magic pearls, but at that moment he was not inclined to do so. Instead, he replied:
'Be patient, Your Majesty. The secret is not my own, so please do not ask me to divulge it. Is it not enough, for the present, that the magic saved you from death to-day?'
'Do not think me ungrateful,' answered the King earnestly. 'A million spears fell on me from the wall, and several stones as big as mountains, yet none of them hurt me!'
'The stones were not as big as mountains, sire,' said the Prince with a smile. 'They were, indeed, no larger than your head.'
'Are you sure about that?' asked Rinkitink.
'Quite sure, Your Majesty.'
'How deceptive those things are!' sighed the King. 'This argument reminds me of the story of Tom Tick, which my father used to tell.'
'I have never heard that story,' Inga answered.
'Well, as he told it, it ran like this:
'When Tom walked out, the sky to spy,
A naughty gnat flew in his eye;
But Tom knew not it was a gnat —
He thought, at first, it was a cat.
'And then, it felt so very big,
He thought it surely was a pig
Till, standing still to hear it grunt,
He cried: 'Why, it's an elephunt!'
'But – when the gnat flew out again
And Tom was free from all his pain,
He said: 'There flew into my eye
A leetle, teenty-tiny fly.''
'Indeed,' said Inga, laughing, 'the gnat was much like your stones that seemed as big as mountains.'
After their dinner they inspected the palace, which was filled with valuable goods stolen by King Gos from many nations. But the day's events had tired them and they retired early to their big sleeping apartment.
'In the morning,' said the boy to Rinkitink, as he was undressing for bed, 'I shall begin the search for my father and mother and the people of Pingaree. And, when they are found and rescued, we will all go home again, and be as happy as we were before.'
They carefully bolted the door of their room, that no one might enter, and then got into their beds, where Rinkitink fell asleep in an instant. The boy lay awake for a while thinking over the day's adventures, but presently he fell sound asleep also, and so weary was he that nothing disturbed his slumber until he awakened next morning with a ray of sunshine in his eyes, which had crept into the room through the open window by King Rinkitink's bed.
Resolving to begin the search for his parents without any unnecessary delay, Inga at once got out of bed and began to dress himself, while Rinkitink, in the other bed, was still sleeping peacefully. But when the boy had put on both his stockings and began looking for his shoes, he could find but one of them. The left shoe, that containing the Pink Pearl, was missing.
Filled with anxiety at this discovery, Inga searched through the entire room, looking underneath the beds and divans and chairs and behind the draperies and in the corners and every other possible place a shoe might be. He tried the door, and found it still bolted; so, with growing uneasiness, the boy was forced to admit that the precious shoe was not in the room.
With a throbbing heart he aroused his companion.
'King Rinkitink,' said he, 'do you know what has become of my left shoe?'
'Your shoe!' exclaimed the King, giving a wide yawn and rubbing his eyes to get the sleep out of them. 'Have you lost a shoe?'
'Yes,' said Inga. 'I have searched everywhere in the room, and cannot find it.'
'But why bother me about such a small thing?' inquired Rinkitink. 'A shoe is only a shoe, and you can easily get another one. But, stay! Perhaps it was your shoe which I threw at the cat last night.'
'The cat!' cried Inga. 'What do you mean?'
'Why, in the night,' explained Rinkitink, sitting up and beginning to dress himself, 'I was wakened by the mewing of a cat that sat upon a wall of the palace, just outside my window. As the noise disturbed me, I reached out in the dark and caught up something and threw it at the cat, to frighten the creature away. I did not know what it was that I threw, and I was too sleepy to care; but probably it was your shoe, since it is now missing.'
'Then,' said the boy, in a despairing tone of voice, 'your carelessness has ruined me, as well as yourself, King Rinkitink, for in that shoe was concealed the magic power which protected us from danger.'
The King's face became very serious when he heard this and he uttered a low whistle of surprise and regret.
'Why on earth did you not warn me of this?' he demanded. 'And why did you keep such a precious power in an old shoe? And why didn't you put the shoe under a pillow? You were very wrong, my lad, in not confiding to me, your faithful friend, the secret, for in that case the shoe would not now be lost.'
To all this Inga had no answer. He sat on the side of his bed, with hanging head, utterly disconsolate, and seeing this, Rinkitink had pity for his sorrow.
'Come!' cried the King; 'let us go out at once and look for the shoe which I threw at the cat. It must even now be lying in the yard of the palace.'
This suggestion roused the boy to action. He at once threw open the door and in his stocking feet rushed down the staircase, closely followed by Rinkitink. But although they looked on both sides of the palace wall and in every possible crack and corner where a shoe might lodge, they failed to find it.
After a half hour's careful search the boy said sorrowfully:
'Someone must have passed by, as we slept, and taken the precious shoe, not knowing its value. To us, King Rinkitink, this will be a dreadful misfortune, for we are surrounded by dangers from which we have now no protection. Luckily I have the other shoe left, within which is the magic power that gives me strength; so all is not lost.'
Then he told Rinkitink, in a few words, the secret of the wonderful pearls, and how he had recovered them from the ruins and hidden them in his shoes, and how they had enabled him to drive King Gos and his men from Regos and to capture the city. The King was much astonished, and when the story was concluded he said to Inga:
'What did you do with the other shoe?'
'Why, I left it in our bedroom,' replied the boy.
'Then I advise you to get it at once,' continued Rinkitink, 'for we can ill afford to lose the second shoe, as well as the one I threw at the cat.'
'You are right!' cried Inga, and they hastened back to their bedchamber.
On entering the room they found an old woman sweeping and raising a great deal of dust.
'Where is my shoe?' asked the Prince, anxiously.
The old woman stopped sweeping and looked at him in a stupid way, for she was not very intelligent.
'Do you mean the one odd shoe that was lying on the floor when I came in?' she finally asked.
'Yes – yes!' answered the boy. 'Where is it? Tell me where it is!'
'Why, I threw it on the dust-heap, outside the back gate,' said she, 'for, it being but a single shoe, with no mate, it can be of no use to anyone.'
'Show us the way to the dust-heap – at once!' commanded the boy, sternly, for he was greatly frightened by this new misfortune which threatened him.
The old woman hobbled away and they followed her, constantly urging her to hasten; but when they reached the dust-heap no shoe was to be seen.
