gracious me! It's a drop o' ten feet, Trot," he exclaimed.

"And you've only one foot to drop, Cap'n," she said, laughing.
"Couldn't you let yourself down with one of the sheets from the bed?"

"I'll try," he rejoined. "But can YOU do that circus act, Trot?"

"Oh, I'm goin' to stay here an' find the Magic Umbrella," she replied.
"Bein' invis'ble, Cap'n, I'm safe enough. What I want to do is to see
you safe back with the Pinkies, an' then I'll manage to hold my own all
right, never fear."

So they brought a blue sheet and tied one end to a post of the blue bed
and let the other end dangle out the blue window. "Goodbye, mate," said
Cap'n Bill, preparing to descend. "Don't get reckless."

"I won't, Cap'n. Don't worry."

Then he grasped the sheet with both hands and easily let himself down
to the wall. Trot had told him where to find the rope ladder she had
left and how to fasten it to the broken flagstaff so he could climb
down into the field outside the City. As soon as he was safe on the
wall, Cap'n Bill began to hobble along the broad top toward the
connecting wall that surrounded the entire City--just as Ghip-Ghisizzle
had done--and Trot anxiously watched him from the window.

But the Blue City was now beginning to waken to life. One of the
soldiers came from a house, sleepily yawning and stretching himself,
and presently his eyes lit upon the huge form of Cap'n Bill hastening
along the top of the wall. The soldier gave a yell that aroused a score
of his comrades and brought them tumbling into the street. When they
saw how the Boolooroo's precious prisoner was escaping, they instantly
became alert and wide-awake, and every one started in pursuit along the
foot of the wall.

Of course, the long-legged Blueskins could run faster than poor Cap'n
Bill. Some of them soon got ahead of the old sailorman and came to the
rope ladder which Trot had left dangling from the stone bench, where it
hung down inside the City. The Blue soldiers promptly mounted this
ladder and so gained the wall, heading off the fugitive. When Cap'n
Bill came up, panting and all out of breath, the Blueskins seized him
and held him fast.

Cap'n Bill was terribly disappointed at being recaptured, and so was
Trot, who had eagerly followed his every movement from her window in
the palace. The little girl would have cried with vexation, and I think
she did weep a few tears before she recovered her courage; but Cap'n
Bill was a philosopher, in his w