PLOPPA AND SIR HOKUS ESCAPE

Gloomily Sir Hokus climbed down from the table. If he jumped before Ploppa's return, he could only reach the edge of the clearing and then sink into the treacherous mud. But suppose the turtle was too late? In great agitation he paced up and down the narrow room. Preparations for the wedding were going forward briskly, judging from the thumps and bangs and excited shrieks on the other side of the door.

"A pretty kettle of blue fish!" fumed Sir Hokus, who, like most of the rest of us, had often dreamed of his own wedding and pictured an affair of great pomp and magnificence. "Not a cake nor a castle in the whole Kingdom. Like as not there'll be mud pie. Not a tune--not a dance step. And such a bride!" Climbing on the table again, he stared anxiously out of the window. All around the Queen's hut little black pigs grunted and squealed. In the distance he saw several cows on stilts nibbling hungrily at the tree tops, but nowhere in that whole dreary waste could he catch so much as a glimpse of Ploppa. Sir Hokus tried to imagine himself King of the Marshes, wobbling about uncomfortably on stilts, pointing out the sights to Dorothy or Bettsy Bobbin, but the mere thought of Marcia for a Queen made his heart thump so hard it rattled all his armor. "As soon as that door opens, I'll make a dash for it," he decided desperately, "and woe to the man who stands in my way!" But it was not a man who stood in the door when it did open, but Marcia herself, surrounded by a bevy of marsh maidens. Her brown eye rolled round and round with excitement, and in her arms she clasped a huge bouquet of tiger lilies and cat-tails.

"Approach, Usee!" croaked this frightful apparition. "Approach and salute your Queen!"

"Avaunt, woman!" rasped Sir Hokus, backing rapidly toward the window. "Avaunt, wench, and come not near!" Though Marcia repelled him utterly, the Knight could not bring himself to push her aside and fight his way through the marsh maidens to the door. Queen Marcia had no such nice feelings to hold her back and, infuriated by the Knight's remarks, she rushed upon him and brought her bouquet down so hard upon his helmet that tiger lilies and cat-tails flew in every direction. I am not sure how long Sir Hokus would have submitted to her pummeling, or whether he would not in time have broken his Knightly vows and struck out at this marsh maiden, but at this instant three shrill calls sounded at the window. In one leap he was upon the table, in another, on the chair.

"Lady!" boomed Sir Hokus, pulling himself up on the ledge and kissing his mailed glove to the Queen of the Marshes. "Lady, farewell!" Headlong he dove through the window and, amid the screeches of the Stick-in-the-Muds, disappeared. The shock of his landing on Ploppa's hard shell rendered him speechless for several seconds, and by the time he had regained his breath and his balance, Ploppa had reached the edge of the clearing and plunged joyfully into the impenetrable swamp.

"A lucky and timely escape!" panted Sir Hokus, peering expectantly around for signs of the enemy. "How, now? Does no man pursue?"

"Trust Ploppa for that," grunted the turtle, looking back with a chuckle. "I've knocked down all the stilts for miles around and tramped them into the mire. A fine time they'll have making new ones!"

"You did?" roared the Knight, feeling more really cheerful than he had felt since he left the Emerald City. "Ho! Ho! Ho! This is capital, my dear Ploppa! Excellent and grand." Sir Hokus bent nearly double at the effort of a tree-dweller to draw his stilts out of the mud with a fishing line. And it was comical indeed to see Marcia and her court marooned on the tiny clearing surrounding her hut, making fierce gestures and shouting for the Knight to return. From every tree-house they passed, Stick-in-the-Muds screamed and scolded, but Ploppa had done his work so well that they were forced to stick to their trees and were powerless to prevent their new King from escaping.

"I could love you for this!" beamed the Knight, thumping Ploppa affectionately on the shell.

"Then you won't leave the swamp?" cried the turtle, with a little flounce of excitement. "Do say that you will remain. I'll find you a dry spot for a hut, bring you all the frogs you can eat, carry you everywhere on my back, and when you wish to fight there are always Stick-in-the-Muds handy."

"Nay! Nay!" sighed Sir Hokus, growing sober at the mere thought of such an existence. "I must go forward and never shall I rest till I have saved a maiden, served a monarch, and destroyed a monster. I must go on. On, and on, and on!" Ploppa made no answer, but two big tears trickled down his cheeks and fell with a great splash into the bog.

"You come with _me_," begged the Knight in great distress. "Come with me and see the world, dear Ploppa."

"Will there be plenty of mud?" choked the poor turtle, controlling his sobs with difficulty.

"Well, that I cannot promise," sighed the Knight, shaking his head doubtfully. "But there will be rivers and streams and plenty of fresh showers."

"But I must have mud," insisted the turtle sorrowfully, "plenty of good, thick, wet mud."

"And I must have adventure," declared Sir Hokus, looking with a shudder over the cold foggy marsh filled with the dismal croaking of frog goblins and the sigh of a desolate wind in the straggly trees. "I must have adventure and the glitter and glory of strange, glamorous places."

"I must have mud and you must have adventure. Oh, why," wailed Ploppa, with a smothered sob, "cannot people who like each other like the same things? I long to go with you, but I cannot live without mud."

"Well, I hope there is more magic and less mud in the next country I come to," said Sir Hokus, with a slight shiver. Now the next country, as it happened, was quite close, only hidden by the thick fog from the Knight's curious gaze. And presently Ploppa, dragging himself out of the swamp, set him down on the edge of a wide yellow plain.

"Good-bye!" gurgled Ploppa, winking fast to keep from crying again. "Good-bye! I'll never forget you."

"Nor I, you, my brave fellow." Leaning down, Sir Hokus gave the slippery turtle a hug--or as much of a hug as he could manage with a monster so huge and unwieldy. "Don't grieve," he begged earnestly, "for I will return! I will return," he promised, raising his sword solemnly, "anon!" Then, because he was not feeling any too cheerful himself, he strode quickly across the plain, for in the distance he could just descry the gleaming turrets of a strange, tall castle.

"Anon! He will return anon!" strangled poor Ploppa, settling with a tired flop into the mud. "Anon? Anon? How long is that, pray?"