At last, after blundering about like this for many days, getting their clothes torn and their faces covered with mud, they walked right into the King’s back-garden by mistake. The King’s men came running up at once and caught them. But Polynesia flew into a tree in the garden, without anybody seeing her, and hid herself. The Doctor and the rest were taken before the King. “Ha, ha!” cried the King. “So you are caught again! This time you shall not escape. Take them all back to prison and put double locks on the door. This White Man shall scrub my kitchen-floor for the rest of his life!” So the Doctor and his pets were led back to prison and locked up. And the Doctor was told that in the morning he must begin scrubbing the kitchen-floor. They were all very unhappy. “This is a great nuisance,” said the Doctor. “I really must get back to Puddleby. That poor sailor will think I’ve stolen his ship if I don’t get home soon.... I wonder if those hinges are loose.” But the door was very strong and firmly locked. There seemed no chance of getting out. Then Gub-Gub began to cry again. All this time Polynesia was still sitting in the tree in the palace-garden. She was saying nothing and blinking her eyes. This was always a very bad sign with Polynesia. Whenever she said nothing and blinked her eyes, it meant that somebody had been making trouble, and she was thinking out some way to put things right. People who made trouble for Polynesia or her friends were nearly always sorry for it afterwards. Presently she spied Chee-Chee swinging through the trees still looking for the Doctor. When Chee-Chee saw her, he came into her tree and asked her what had become of him. “The Doctor and all the animals have been caught by the King’s men and locked up again,” whispered Polynesia. “We lost our way in the jungle and blundered into the palace-garden by mistake.” “But couldn’t you guide them?” asked Chee-Chee; and he began to scold the parrot for letting them get lost while he was away looking for the cocoanuts. “It was all that stupid pig’s fault,” said Polynesia. “He would keep running off the path hunting for ginger-roots. And I was kept so busy catching him and bringing him back, that I turned to the left, instead of the right, when we reached the swamp.—Sh!—Look! There’s Prince Bumpo coming into the garden! He must not see us.—Don’t move, whatever you do!” And there, sure enough, was Prince Bumpo, the King’s son, opening the garden-gate. He carried a book of fairy-tales under his arm. He came strolling down the gravel-walk, humming a sad song, till he reached a stone seat right under the tree where the parrot and the monkey were hiding. Then he lay down on the seat and began reading the fairy-stories to himself. Chee-Chee and Polynesia watched him, keeping very quiet and still. [Illustration: “He began reading the fairy-stories to himself”] After a while the King’s son laid the book down and sighed a weary sigh.