"Let's find out," laughed the fish; and without further ado he dived beneath the boat and upset it with a mighty stroke of his great scaly tail.

"Help!" screamed the mother.

"Help!" gurgled the young wife.

"Now I am in a devil of a fix," groaned the man, "which ever one I save, the neighbors will say I should have saved the other one." And he started off alone swimming rapidly toward the sh.o.r.e.

Then the fish remembered that the young wife was quite plump--even if she wasn't beautiful as her husband had said she was, so he dived deep into the sea and left Gud standing there on the water without a blessed thing to do and nothing to think about.

And now a wind came sighing over the deep blue sea, and little ripples stirred upon the surface of the water, and then the wind came soughing over the roughened sea, and larger wavelets raced and ran atop the cold, damp water. And soon the wind began to howl and tear the wild, wet sea, and mighty waves began to break and toss and splatter--and it made Gud seasick.

So he began to wonder why the waves kept going on and leaving him behind. The more he thought about it, the more it worried him; and finally it occurred to Gud that he was opposing the waves subconsciously. So he sublimated his subconscious conflict and harmonized his ego with the spirit of the waves, and when the next wave hit him he rode atop it like a cat on the ridgepole of a cabin going down the river in a June rise.

As the wave struck the sh.o.r.e, it began to break and make breakers. As soon as it was broke, Gud dismounted and strolled along the beach looking for flotsam and jetsam.

He didn't find any, so he picked up a jeweled casket and started to wonder with a great curiosity what it contained. Then suddenly, he tossed the jeweled casket aside without even examining the padlock, for he had remembered that he knew all things and hence could not wonder nor possess curiosity. But upon further consideration he realized that lack of wonder and curiosity on his part would kill all the suspense in his story, so he began to wonder what the wild waves were saying, and why sea sh.e.l.ls are pink inside, and what the ink-fish was writing on the sands of time.

Gud pondered these things as he walked along the beach until he saw before him a series of shallow depressions. At first he thought they were ordinary soul tracks. Then he looked again and gave forth a low whistle of surprise and amazement and bent low to examine the footprints--and shrank back in horror, for they were stained a deep crimson.

Cautiously Gud touched his finger to the stain and examined it critically. "'Tis blood!" he cried.

Gud began to trail the stained footprints along the beach and followed them until they turned and led into the sea. At the edge of the water he paused and sighed, for his robe was now nicely dehydrated. But curiosity is a compelling instinct and wonder a powerful emotion; and so Gud followed the trail as it led down the sloping beach and on down along the bottom of the sea.

At last the trail led to a rocky cavern where phosph.o.r.escent eyes stared out of opalescent water. Here the trail came finally to an end as it entered a door in the side of a barnacle-covered hull of an ancient galley.

"And what is this place?" asked Gud of a mermaid, who was sitting on one of the ship's knees: "and what bold criminal with a blood-stained trail has entered here?"

"Can't you read?" retorted the mermaid. "The sign tells you plainly enough that this is our Deep-Sea Butcher Shop, and he who just now entered was the butcher's boy, who had been up on the sh.o.r.e to get some red-blooded meat. We tire dreadfully down here of having seven Fridays in a week. And now if you will quit being silly and playing at amateur detective I will sing you a song." And so she sang:

Chapter x.x.xVII

It was a soulful song he sung, A doleful song sang he, For in the sun her body swung High on the gallows' tree.

The loathsome vultures swooped among The shadows hungrily, As though awaiting for the dung That swayed there horribly.

Then as a distant church bell rung Slowly, peacefully, Out through the night a mad cry flung Red echoes suddenly.

A mad cry, then the silence clung O'er sky and sh.o.r.e and sea; He dead below, and she that hung High on the gallows' tree.

Chapter x.x.xVIII

"Oh, listen to the mocking bird!" cried the crustacean.

"Ha, ha!" laughed the crinoid, "that is only a mock turtle."

"Oh H_{2}O!" snorted the good red herring, "you talk like a fish out of water."

"She has a necklace of shark's teeth," whispered the jealous water baby.

"And a pearl without a price," piped the sea lady.

"But why do mermaids have fish tales to tell?" demanded Gud.

"I don't know," answered the deep sea diver, who was looking for the treasure. "But they call 'Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea'

prophetic fiction, but you can't shoot a rifle under water without blowing your head off."

Just then the Underdog barked at the copycat and Gud woke up and realized that all this marine stuff was just the subconscious yearning of a writer born in the short gra.s.s country to imitate Conrad, and that he, Gud, was still lying in the pasture, and that the snow had changed to rain and his feet were wet.

Chapter x.x.xIX

And old Giasticuticus Stood on a mountain side, His right legs shorter than his left, And scratched his tough, thick hide.

"I live upon a bias, true, With legs I'd like to hide, But that arose from dwelling here Upon the mountain side."

Chapter XL

And Gud came upon a paradise, its streets of hammered gold. Iridescent fountains played beneath o'er-hanging palms, and gentle breezes, wafting through the glistening latticery of ornate edifice, made music soft and low that lulled of peace and quiet and eternal joy.

Here was a paradise prepared for most exacting saints. Gud strolled its million leagues about and wondered why there was no sign of occupants.

These heavenly mansions were not newly built but rather spoke of use.

While all the major structures were intact, the minor furnishings gave evidence of chaos and disorder. This paradise, it seemed to Gud, had once o'erflown with life, but now was empty and abandoned.

All this puzzled Gud and worried him. He was familiar with the ruins of many a paradise that had been smashed and broken by rebellion or by war, but his mind could find no reason why a heaven so fine as this should be deserted, and yet remain in such fair state of preservation.

The most likely theory which he could conceive, was that some pestilence had raged and stripped the place of every living soul. Over this Gud cogitated. Had it been a dwelling place of mortal flesh, a pestilence would have left its tell-tale stench or whitening bones. But immortal souls--how could pestilence have slain them? His theory thus became a paradox or worse yet a dilemma, and either one is harrowing to the mind.

So Gud started out again in search of facts.

After much meandering he was rewarded by finding himself looking down into a high-walled garden, most beautiful of any spot that he had yet discovered. And better still, he noted signs of life. He hastened to descend, that he might explore the garden. It was there beneath a bower that he found a female soul most radiant. She was sitting on a gorgeous purple rock, and singing, and knitting as she sang, while all about her, tumbling on the gra.s.s in a most completely idiotic fashion, were little souls at play.

"Good morning," said Gud.

The soul stared up at him in most incredulous manner and replied; "I thought they were all dead."