"Well, that's all over now, you poor child, you!" Ato's voice shook with indignation as he looked in at the little boy whose every rib showed plainly under the skin. In fact, a heap of grass and dried roots in the cage made the kind-hearted monarch shudder with distaste and sympathy. "You shall come with us and eat like a King," he promised, nodding his head cheerfully, "and learn to be an able-bodied seaman to boot." Instead of looking grateful or pleased, the boy whom the hippopotamus had called "Tandy" merely stood looking between the bars of his cage. "Why should I go with you?" he said finally and wearily. "You look wild and dangerous to me, and far worse than the Leopard Men. Here, at least I have Kobo to take care of me, and who knows what further perils and hardships I should suffer at sea?" "Ho! HO! And how do you like that, my lads?" Roger rocked backward and forward on Samuel Salt's shoulder. "The young one speaks truly. If you could but see yourselves, my Hearties." Now both Ato and Samuel had forgotten their plunge in the river, but with their hair and clothing still covered with mud and slime they looked the veriest rogues and rascals. And while Ato regarded himself with embarrassment and discomfiture, Samuel took a quick step forward. "SO!" roared the great seaman angrily. "So, you don't trust us, eh? Well, stay here if you wish and grow up like a monkey. You look like a little wild man already." "STOP!" Nikobo quivered all over with resentment. "You must not call Tandy a wild man." "Don't mind." The boy drew the leopard skin around him with quiet dignity. "I can bear it. I have borne far worse. I can bear anything. I am a KING and the son of a King's son! Tell them to go away, Kobo." "Now, Now, NOW! This is nothing but nonsense." Ato clapped his hands sharply. "However we look, my young squab, you are in good and royal company. My mate here, Captain Salt, is Captain of the _Crescent Moon_, Royal Explorer of Oz, and a Knight, besides. I, though at present a ship's cook, am King of the Octagon Isle, and Roger, here, is as Royal a Read Bird as ever wagged a bill and wing. If you say you are a King, we will have to believe you, though 'tis hardly credible." Ato stared with round eyes at the matted hair and dirty body of the little prisoner. "If you say you are a King we must believe you, but in return you must believe _us_, and stop all this hoity toity talk and clishmaclatter." "He speaks the plain truth." Nikobo pressed her huge snout close to the bars. "Even I can detect the signs of royalty in this fat and goodly person whom I just this morning helped out of the river. You must go with them, Tandy, and they will carry you back to your own Kingdom." "But I tell you, I'd rather stay here with YOU," wailed the little boy, relaxing a moment from his kingly and overbearing attitude.