Next morning, while he and Ato were cutting up potatoes for Nikobo, Tandy was not surprised to hear a loud hail from above. Something had happened just as Samuel had predicted. Running out with a paring knife still in his hand, he saw a strange glittering mountainous island abaft the beam. It was still a goodish sea mile away, but with the glasses Ato generously pressed upon him Tandy made out the most curious bit of geography the eyes of a voyager had yet gazed on. There was not a piece of level ground on the island anywhere. Its high, glittering, needle-like peaks rose straight out of the sea with apparently no way of ascending or descending. Of clear crystal, reflecting every color of the rainbow, the beautiful island was almost too dazzling to look at as it lay shimmering and sparkling in the bright sunshine. As they sailed nearer, Tandy saw that a perfect maze of high and airy bridges ran like a gigantic spider web between the peaks. On these bridges all the island's life and activities seemed to take place. Quaint fluted cottages were built in the center, and along the perilous catwalks on either side raced the Mountaineers themselves, brandishing glittering poles and spears and halberds. "Pikes on the peak! Pikes on the peak! Port your helm, Sammy," roared Ato. "Not too close! Not too near, Sam-u-el. How'd you like to be pinned to the mast with a spear or flattened on the deck with a boulder?" "Ah, now, they're just excited!" answered Samuel Salt, squinting curiously up at the Bridgemen, but Nikobo, with her short legs resting on the top rail of her raft, squealed out a dolorous warning. "Fighters! Fighters! These Pikers look savager than the Leopard Men. Best back away, Master Captain, while there's still time." "Oh, look! LOOK! There's a ship on the mountain," cried Tandy, jerking Samuel's sleeve, "right there where that torrent comes down between the bridges, a three-master, larger than the _Crescent Moon_." "Then it's a battle!" boomed Samuel, bringing his helm hard around. "Stand by to man the guns. 'Hoy, all hands, 'hoy!" While his shipmates sprang to attention, Samuel darted from mast to mast, touching the buttons on his sail controls. "AYE DE AYE OH LAY!" The shrill unexpected cry came from the highest bridge on the island, and was immediately taken up and repeated by all the Pikemen on the lower bridges. It resulted in such a mad medley of yodels that Ato clapped both hands to his ears and Nikobo plunged her head in her drinking tub.