1

The new captain of H. M. S. Thrush, who had come on board at Bermuda, was very particular in his views as to what a young female passenger on a British man-o'-war might or might not do.

"How old are you, child?" he sharply demanded when he first set eyes on Dido.

"I dunno."

"You do not know your own age? You do not look like a stupid child."

"O' course I ain't stupid," said Dido, nettled. "But before I came on board this here ship I were asleep a plaguy long time aboard a whaling vessel—months and months—Davy Jones alone knows how long."

"A fine skimble-skamble tale!" said Captain Hughes incredulously. "Well, however that may be, a young person of your age—and I doubt if that can be more than twelve—should remain below decks and learn lessons. I cannot have you skylarking with the midshipmen or continually getting under the men's feet. Needlework would be a more proper occupation. Have you no piece of embroidery—no sampler to sew on?"

"Sampler? Not blooming likely!" said Dido. "Needlework's a mug's game."

Captain Hughes peered at her disapprovingly over the logbook of the Thrush.

"It says here," he pursued, "that you were received on board, for passage back to England, off the isle of Nantucket, after having been instrumental in uncovering a Hanoverian plot against his Majesty King James III." He read aloud these last words with patent disbelief, and added, "How, pray, could a young person such as yourself have come to be concerned in such matters?"

"Oh, that's a long story," said Dido. "That'd be several long stories."

She had been studying Captain Hughes, and her first impressions of him were no more favorable than his of her. Captain Osbaldestone, who had invited her aboard the Thrush, had been a lively, imperturbable little man, on cordial terms with all his crew. But shortly after Dido's arrival on board, the Thrush had encountered, first, a pirate vessel, and then a Hanoverian merchantman. There had been a couple of sharp sea battles; the pirate had been sunk, the Hanoverian captured, manned with a prize crew, and escorted by the Thrush to the island of Bermuda, where both vessels needed a good deal of repair after the engagement. And while that was going on, Captain Osbaldestone had been promoted to command a larger British naval ship, and Captain Hughes had come to take his place on board the Thrush.

It was a change for the worse, Dido soon decided.

"Pray remember, Miss Twite, that I do not wish to see you outside your own quarters," the captain said severely.

"What? Mayn't I go up on deck, even?"

She stared at him, wondering if he could be serious. He certainly looked it—he was a tall, stern individual with a thick, upstanding brush of gray hair and bristling gray brows. His mouth was exceedingly firm. He replied, "You may take the air twice a day on the foredeck. But no unseemly frolicking with the ship's company, if you please!"

"Mayn't I even climb the rigging?"

"Certainly not!"

"What the dickens shall I do all day, then?"

"I shall instruct my steward, Holystone, to take charge of your education. Which, so far as I can make out, has been wholly neglected. You appear to know nothing about anything except navigation and how to cut up whales. During the passage to England you may at least learn to spell, and the basic rudiments of arithmetic."

Mr. Holystone, the steward, however, preferred to teach Dido logic, astronomy, the use of the globes, trigonometry, ancient history, and the rules of war. His company was the one thing that consoled Dido for the arrival of Captain Hughes, and since she was no longer allowed to frolic with the midshipmen, she spent most of her time with the steward and his cat, assisting him with various of his tasks while he gave her instruction. Mr. Holystone had come on board with the captain at Bermuda. He seemed fitted for higher employment, but performed his duties calmly and capably, was on friendly terms with the crew, and entrusted with the captain's confidence to a considerable degree. He was a very silent man, so quiet sometimes that he seemed like a hole in the air—as if, Dido thought, he were trying to remember a dream that had sunk down to the bottom of his mind. But at other times he could be talkative enough, and had passed on much useful information to his young companion: why the Black-Browed Albatross is known as the Hollyhawk; how to make Dandyfunk and Crackerhash; that you should never drink the first cup of liquid offered you by a stranger.

Dido was sitting on the foredeck, cross-legged, polishing up the captain's silver spoons and forks with a piece of sharkskin and a little pot of powdered hartshorn during the second of her two daily airing periods. Above her in the sky hung a great pale moon which had been following the ship all afternoon. It was like a drum, Dido thought, made of silvery parchment, dangling up there over the stern, waiting for someone to climb up the mizzenmast and give it a bang.

Must be nearly dinner time, she reckoned.

In confirmation of this, she saw Mr. Holystone picking his way neatly among the marlinspikes, belaying pins, coils of rope, capstans, and windlasses.

"Just done the last spoon, Mr. Holy!" she called, shuffling them all together.

The captain's steward was a slight man, of medium height, with regular features and so calm an expression that he looked like a figurehead, carved from pale brown wood. His hair had bleached and his skin had weathered to the same beech-brown color. His eyes were gray and thoughtful; he had an air of sober dignity at all times. Despite this he was not very old, Dido thought—nothing like as old as the captain.

He held out a hand for the silver, then paused, glancing in some surprise over Dido's shoulder.

"What's up, Mr. Holy?"

Dido looked round too; then, exclaiming "Caramba!" she scrambled to her feet. For the moon, instead of floating behind the mainmast, had glided all the way round the horizon and established itself on the ship's right-hand side, where it was beginning to glow pink in the rapidly darkening sky. The fresh following breeze had shifted round to the starboard quarter and was ruffling Dido's short brown hair and making her square midshipman's collar stand on end. The smoke from the Thrush's stern funnel streamed away to port.

"Hey!" said Dido. "We've turned round!"

Staring back along the rail she saw that the ship's wake, which all day had carved out an arrow-straight line of creamy froth, stretching southwest behind them, was now an enormous curve, like a giant question mark across the deep-blue ocean.

"What's amiss, Mr. Holystone? D'you reckon one o' the crew fell overboard? I didn't hear nobody yell out."

"It is indeed singular. A most unforeseen occurrence."

"D'you reckon Cap'n Hughes suddenly remembered summat he'd left behind in Bermuda?"

Dido sighed, remembering how many months she had already been away from her family and friends in Battersea, London. Her family were not particularly lovable—indeed her mother and elder sister had often been extremely unkind to Dido, and her father, though he could be larky when the spirit took him, frequently forgot his younger daughter for weeks on end. But still, she wanted to see them again, if only to tell her adventures—how she had been all round the world on a whaler, and had helped rescue a girl called Dutiful Penitence from a wicked aunt who turned out to be no aunt at all but a Hanoverian rebel, planning to blow up St. James's Palace with a long-range cannon.

There was also a friend of Dido's called Simon whom she wanted to see very much indeed.

"Maybe Cap'n Hughes just slipped a mite off course," she suggested hopefully.

But the Thrush sailed on along her new course; the moon, now large and pink as a peony, remained obstinately on the right-hand side, casting a pearly path over the dark water.

"I will take these below," said Mr. Holystone. "It may be that I can discover what has caused the change."

His cat, El Dorado, who had come on deck with her master, stretched elaborately, first her front paws, then her back.

"Come on, Dora," said Dido. "Let's us go too, and find out what's happening."

She picked up the copper-colored cat. Dora's immensely long tail instantly went twice round Dido's neck.

The big three-masted man-o'-war was breasting large Atlantic waves; the deck rose, dipped, and rolled from side to side in a long, continuous, corkscrewing glide. But Dido crossed it with practiced ease, making for the captain's companionway. As she passed them, several sailors nodded to her in a friendly manner, but they did not speak. Captain Hughes was a strict disciplinarian. One or two of the midshipmen gave her cautious grins. A man called Silver Taffy (on account of his impressive, shining, hallmarked dentures) cast a malevolent look at both Dido and the cat, making a figure-eight sign with fingers and thumbs as he spat over the side.

"Pair o' Jonahs!" he muttered as Dido passed him. "I know what I'd do if I had charge o' this vessel."

Dido scowled at him. He had been one of the crew aboard the Queen Ettarde, the vanquished pirate ship, and had elected to become a member of the Thrush's crew rather than go to jail in Bermuda. He'll bear watching, Dido thought, as she climbed down the companion ladder. I'd as soon not run across him on a dark night.

She passed the door of the officers' wardroom, from which came a strong smell of fried onions and salt pork. The officers—except for those on watch—were at supper. Dido as she passed could hear what they said, for it was very hot belowdecks, and the door was braced open.

"Plaguy tedious change of course," said Mr. Windward, the first lieutenant. "I wanted to get home to Blighty and spend my prize money. What possessed the captain to turn south?"

"Maybe he had an order?" suggested Bowsprit, the second lieutenant.

"Who gave it? Where the deuce could it have come from?"

"The admiralty, of course. Where else do orders come from?"

"How did it get here, sapskull?"

"Sealed, maybe," suggested one of the midshipmen. "You know: not to be opened till two months out at sea."

"We'd have heard about it before," said Lieutenant Windward.

"Not from old Mumchance. He'd not tell you it was Tuesday."

Dido went on to her own cabin, a tiny box next to the captain's big day cabin ("so that I can keep an eye on you and see you don't get into trouble," he had said severely, supervising her removal from a much more comfortable cabin farther off). She took her meals with Mr. Holystone in his galley, where he prepared food for the captain. This was two doors farther on, beyond the captain's sleeping quarters. She went to the galley now, and found Mr. Holystone thoughtfully paring off thin curls of coconut and laying them on a silver dish. Captain Hughes was partial to tropical food.

"Here," said Dido, "lemme do that." She took the knife from Mr. Holystone, inquiring, in a lower tone, "What's to do? Cap's up on the quarterdeck—walking to and fro—looks as pothered as a flying fish that's forgot how to swim."

"He had a message." Mr. Holystone gave a stir to a cauldron of shark soup, turned a mutton ham on its roasting spit, then began kneading a pan of dough and breaking it into rolls.

"He did have a message? From the admiralty?"

"No, from Admiral Hollingsworth at Trinidad."

"How the blazes did it get here?"

"By carrier pigeon." Mr. Holystone put his rolls in the oven.

"Hey—was it that pigeon that Dora nearly caught this morning?"

"There it is."

Now Dido noticed the same pigeon perched on top of the dish rack, with its head under its wing. Must be tuckered out, she thought, if it's flown all the way from Trinidad—wherever that is. "Best watch Dora don't get it, Mr. Holy?"

But the cat, El Dorado, was engaged in gnawing some shark scraps on a tin pan which her master had put down for her.

"Lucky Noah Gusset caught the pigeon afore Dora got to it, or Cap'n Hughes'd never have got the message," Dido remarked.

"And we would have been spared much trouble."

"Why? What was the message? Did you find out?"

"Si, si." Mr. Holystone sometimes absently lapsed into Spanish or Latin. When he was fifteen his adopted father had sent him to be educated at the University of Salamanca, in Spain. He was so fond of learning that he had remained there for ten years. In consequence he knew a great deal about almost everything, and spoke nine languages fluently.

"Talk English, please!" said Dido, who did not.

"Excuse me! Captain Hughes has been instructed to sail down the east coast of Roman America to the port of Tenby, in New Cumbria."

Mr. Holystone did not look particularly happy about this change of plan.

"Is that a long way?" asked ignorant Dido.

"I should say so! Two thousand miles, I daresay. We must cross the equator."

"Two thousand miles?" Dido gasped. "But I thought we was on our way home, bound for London river."

Her mouth drooped. Mr. Holystone looked at her with sympathy.

"Poor young miss. It is a sad feeling—to be so far from home."

"Where's your home, Mr. Holy?"

"Hy Brasil?" The steward sighed. "It is not so far from where we are going. But I have no friends there anymore. I cannot return."

"So why do we have to go to this New Cumbria?"

"Admiral Hollingsworth had a message from the queen of that country, asking for help."

"Why should the British Navy help her?"

"She has sustained some wrong at the hands of a neighbor country. There has been some attack, some invasion—the message did not say. Something has been taken from the queen."

"Captain Hughes has to get it back?"

"So he was told."

"But why should we help this queen?" asked Dido. She folded the captain's table napkin into a neat cockade. "Why can't the queen's own army do that job?"

"Really you are a remarkably ill-informed young person," Mr. Holystone said rather severely. "Have you never learned the history of your own land?"

"Oh, come off it, Mr. Holy. Don't preach at a person! It ain't my fault I never got no schooling."

"No, that is true," he apologized. "And it is true, too, that all my education has done me little good. What is the use of being able to read Sanskrit, Homer, and Machiavelli, if you end up as a ship's steward?"

"You're ever such a good steward, Mr. Holy," Dido said kindly. "Never mind about Mucky Velly. Tell me about the queen of Cumbria. What's her name?"

"The message did not intimate. Her country is Britain's oldest ally. There have been links of friendship between Britain and New Cumbria since the year 577."

"Coo!" Dido counted on her fingers. "More than twelve hundred years. What happened in five seven seven?"

"A battle—the battle of Dyrham. Here, take the tablecloth." He handed her a heavy white damask square and followed her into the captain's cabin, a big, handsome room which contained a massive mahogany table, as well as a desk and several armchairs. The walls were paneled in walnut and covered with maps, charts, and diagrams of the flying machines which were the captain's passion. He had a theory that ships could be constructed to fly like birds. Up to now, no one at the admiralty had taken him seriously.

Big, slanting windows let in the moonlight and followed the line of the ship's side.

Dido spread the cloth on the table, and Mr. Holystone laid out a single place setting of knives, forks, spoons, plates, and glasses for wine and water.

"Who won the battle of Dyrham?"

"The British lost. You never heard of the Bath Brigade? Or the Glastonbury Guards? Or the Mendip Diehards?" Dido shook her head. "The British and Romans were fighting together against a lot of invading Saxons. When the battle was lost, a number of British and Romans escaped to the coast. There they took ship—in fact the ships that the Saxons had arrived in—and set off across the sea with their wives and families. The first land they reached was New Cumbria, so there they settled."

"And they've been there ever since?" Dido was greatly struck. "Didn't they never go back?"

"Some of their descendants went back. And by that time the Saxons had settled down in Britain and made friends with the natives. So there has always been a link between the two countries."

"And that's why this queen thinks poor old Cap'n Hughes has got to come running two thousand miles to pick up her knitting when it drops off the needles? If you ask me," said Dido, "I think she has a sauce!"

Mr. Holystone looked a little baffled—some of Dido's language was beyond him. But at this moment they heard Captain Hughes coming along the passage.

"It's lucky," pursued Dido, without heeding this, "that the Thrush is one o' these newfangled steam sloops, or it'd be Blue Moon Habbakuk Day afore we ever gets to London. How long'll it take us to sail down the coast of Roman America, Mr. Holy?"

"A week or two—depending on the wind."

Picking up his tray, the steward gestured to Dido to follow him as Captain Hughes appeared in the doorway. The captain, however, halted her with an uplifted hand.

"One moment, Miss Twite."

Oh, blimey, now what? wondered Dido. She searched her conscience for misdeeds. Captain Hughes had a decidedly gloomy expression, as if he had swallowed a sea lemon.

Mr. Holystone had gone to his pantry, and now returned, carrying a bowl of shark soup and the pan of freshly baked rolls.

Captain Hughes said, "Lay another place for Miss Twite, Holystone. I have instructions to give her."

Mr. Holystone was far too well trained to betray surprise. He had attended butlers' school in London; part of the course consisted of half an hour's poker-face work every morning. So now he said, "Certainly, sir," with perfect calm, and retired to reappear next moment with silver, plates, napkin, and glasses for Dido. She, however, gaped at the captain, startled out of her wits by this unexpected honor.

"Sit down, Miss Twite," said the captain.

"Ay, ay, Cap."

Captain Hughes did not go so far as to pull out her chair. He eyed her morosely, as if she were some small obstinate piece of grit that had fallen into his chronometer. Dido herself, now that the initial surprise was over, endeavored to appear quite at her ease. She sat down opposite the captain as if she dined at his table every day, while Mr. Holystone supplied her with a plate of soup and a hot roll.

"It has become my duty, Miss Twite—" said Captain Hughes after a fairly lengthy pause, while he eyed his own plate of soup as if wondering how to navigate a vessel across it. "Ahem!—it has become my duty to change course and make passage to the kingdom of Cumbria."

He paused, as if expecting to be questioned, but as Dido continued quietly spooning up her soup, he demanded in a tone of some asperity, "I daresay you will tell me you have never heard of the place?"

"No I shan't," replied Dido with aplomb. "It's Britain's oldest ally, in the middle o' Roman Ameriky; been that since the Battle o' Dickerydock in the year 577."

"Ah. Ho-hum." Captain Hughes was taken aback. "Yes—er—that is, in fact, the case. Ships of the New Cumbrian Navy have been of assistance to us in attacking the Hanoverians. And their ports are at our disposal for watering, refitting, and taking on food."

"Mighty obliging of 'em," said Dido.

"So we are bound to go to the help of the present ruler, who has sent an appeal to His Britannic Majesty King James III."

"Crumbs," said Dido, wondering what sort of help a ruler would need. "I mean, natcherly we are." She also wondered why Captain Hughes was taking pains to explain all this.

Mr. Holystone removed the soup plates and brought in a roasted mutton ham, which the captain proceeded to carve.

"Since it is not yet perfectly clear what the queen wants," said Captain Hughes, handing Dido a plate of meat, "I shall disembark at the port of Tenby and travel inland to wait on her at her capital."

"Is that far?" inquired Dido. It would, she thought, be very boring if the Thrush had to lie at anchor for many days, waiting for the captain.

"Over two hundred miles, I understand. The capital, Bath Regis, lies in the Andes Mountains, which range forms the western boundary of the kingdom."

Dido sighed, chewing on a piece of gristly mutton. He'll be weeks at it, she thought. But then the captain astonished her by saying, "I intend taking you with me, Miss Twite."

"Me?" Hastily Dido gulped down her piece of gristle.

"Don't gape, child! It is most unbecoming. Yes, you," said the captain irritably. "You have been committed to my custody; it would be a shocking dereliction of duty if I were to leave you on board without somebody to watch over you."

"I've managed without custard whatever-it-is plenty o' times before," said Dido ungratefully. "'Sides, I reckon Mr. Holystone'd keep an eye on me."

"I intend taking him as well."

"Oh."

"Do you not wish to see New Cumbria?" demanded the captain. "I had thought I was doing you a favor."

(In fact he had thought nothing of the sort.

"We have Reason to Believe," the British agent in Trinidad had written to Admiral Hollingsworth, who had passed on the letter, "that the Queen of New Cumbria is somewhat crack'd in her Wits. She insists, among other things, that she is the rightful Ruler of the British Isles; & asserts that she would set Sail to Make Good her Claim had she not Pressing Reasons for remaining in her Domain of New Cumbria. But she threatens to withdraw her Friendship, including Use of her Ports by British vessels, unless we Come to her Assistance. Do, Pray, Admiral Hollingsworth, send one of your most Trusted Officers to Settle the Old Lady down—for it wd be a most Disastrous Inconvenience to lose those Roman American Bases. Very likely the Whole Affair will prove to be No Great Matter.—By the bye, I hear the Queen is devotedly Fond of Young Female Children & likes to have one or two such Youthful Protégées always at hand. If any of your Officers shd chance to have a Wife and Young Family, the addition of these Persons to the Mission might well serve to Butter Up the Queen & win her Goodwill, should there prove to be any Difficulties about carrying out her Wishes.")

I only hope the queen does not prove to be a cannibal, thought Captain Hughes rather uncomfortably.

"I never said I didn't want to come!" retorted Dido to his last observation. "All I said was 'oh.' I don't mind coming along. Is this here Bath Regis a grand town—big as London?"

"I doubt that," said Captain Hughes shortly. He was feeling guilty and anxious—not to say deceitful—about Dido's part in the business, and this made him sound sharper than usual. He added, more mildly, "Yet it is said that some of these cities in the Andes Mountains are very magnificent—the Cities of the Kings, or Caesars, they are called; it is believed that the streets are paved with gold and silver, that the rivers run with diamonds. Even their plows and farm implements are reported to be made of precious metals."

"Fancy," said Dido. Even she was impressed at the thought of silver cobblestones. "Is Bath Regis like that, then—silver cobbles and all?"

"I do not know. We shall see."

Dido began to be reconciled to the prospect of breaking her journey.

Mr. Holystone removed the meat and brought in a gluey conserve of quinces in syrup. Captain Hughes absently spooned out a ladleful of this delicacy for Dido and added, "Ahem! Miss Twite! Since your manners and conduct appear to have been scandalously neglected (indeed I cannot imagine how you have been brought up or who has had charge of you), I shall instruct Holystone to bring all your other studies to a halt, and concentrate, during the next week, on teaching you ladylike deportment and elegance of bearing."

"Croopus!"

"You must learn to curtsy—"

"Blimey!"

"You must learn to walk with a book on your head—"

"Why?"

"And," continued the captain, beginning to recall disciplines under which his sisters had suffered, "you will lie each day on a backboard, and will recite 'Papa, potatoes, prunes, and prisms' a hundred times, to give you a more refined diction."

Luckily at this moment—for Dido seemed about to burst—the midshipman of the watch knocked and came in with the day's sextant readings giving the ship's position. Captain Hughes exclaimed with satisfaction over these.

"The Thrush certainly has an excellent turn of speed. It is that steam screw—a remarkable invention, to be sure. Now, if only it could be harnessed to wings.... Thank you, Mr. Multiple; you may return on deck. And you, Miss Twite, had best retire to your cabin; you have much to learn before we reach the port of Tenby."

"Ay, ay, sir," said Dido in rather a stifled manner. She walked slowly toward the door.

Noticing her glum looks, Captain Hughes remarked sharply, "And no sulks, if you please! I shall expect a livelier obedience than that, when we are ashore in New Cumbria! The country is excessively dangerous; there are jaguars, giant owls and bats, spiders seven inches in diameter, which can, I am told, leap thirty feet in one spring; there are alligators, poisonous snakes, hostile savages in the forest armed with poisoned darts, besides huge hairy tusked birds, larger than horses, which can snatch up a grown man in their talons and fly off with him to their eyrie in the mountains."

"Blister me!" muttered Dido, startled out of her gloom. "What are they called—them big birds? Lucky we don't have them in Battersea, or it'd be short commons for the sparrows."

"Their correct designation is rocs," said Captain Hughes. "But I understand the Cumbrians refer to them as aurocs—because of the tusks, presumably. So you see it is imperative that, while we are in that land, you behave yourself obediently—let there be no quirks or foolish capers, I beg!"

"Reckon there won't be time," said Dido. "We'll be too busy dodging the snakes and alligotamoses—not to mention them awe-rocks. G'night, Cap."

She quietly shut the door behind her and glanced into the galley, hoping to find Mr. Holystone. One thing—I'm glad he's coming along, she thought. He's a right handy cove; daresay he'll be a regular oner when it comes to dealing with giant spiders and bats and awe-rocks.

But Mr. Holystone was not in his galley.

And, strangely enough, Dido thought she recognized the back view of Silver Taffy, walking away along the corridor.

What was he doing in Mr. Holystone's galley? she wondered.

The cat, El Dorado, emerged from a place of concealment in the galley coal scuttle, and came to wrap her long tail twice round Dido's ankles.

"Hey, puss!" said Dido. "Lucky Taffy didn't see you or he'd likely have poured a pot of shark soup over you. Are you coming to New Cumbria too? I'd not give a groat for your chances if you stayed on board without Mr. Holy to keep an eye on you. How about coming to share my bunk?"

The kitchen slate was hanging on the wall. It contained the notes: "Weevils in flour. Tell Quartermaster. Fish for Cap brek. Shark again?"

Dido added at the foot: "Hav tuk Dora to bedd. Cap sez you gotta lern me Maners. D."

Then she retired to her tiny cabin, scrubbed her teeth with a rope's end, and clambered into her bunk, where Dora was already purring.

"Well," she yawned, "I guess us'll have some fine larks in New Cumbria, hey, Dora? With the silver cobbles and the hairy spiders—maybe the cobbles'll come in handy for beaning the spiders."

Presently the door opened softly, and Dido felt the blanket twitched off her feet.

"Hey," she muttered, "you're tickling!" Then she was suddenly wide awake, bolt upright. "Murder, is it one o' them spiders?...Oh, it's you, Mr. Holy! What the blazes are you doing to my toes?"

"We are in cockroach latitudes," replied Mr. Holystone, who held a little bottle of dark green liquid and a paintbrush. "They swim out from land. So you must paint your toes every night, and your fingers, with this cactus oil. I thought I might do it without waking you." He passed her the bottle.

"What if you don't?" inquired Dido, industriously painting away at her toes.

"Cockroaches come into bed and nibble; you wake up next day with half a dozen toes missing."

"Oh."

"Good night, Miss Dido," said Holystone, and took the bottle from her.

"Mr. Holy, Silver Taffy was in your pantry—why? What'd he come there for?"

"He came to steal the pigeon," Mr. Holystone replied. Dido could feel anger beneath his calm.

"The pigeon? What for? To eat?"

"No, no. He sent it off—Mr. Multiple saw him toss it over the side."

"With a message? Who's he want to send a message to?"

"How can we tell? To some of his piratical friends, maybe."

Frowning to himself, Mr. Holystone withdrew, and closed the door.

Dido went back to sleep, and dreamed of hairy cockroaches, bigger than horses, with tusks thirty feet long.