you were so heavy
I couldn't help it."

"Dear me!" gasped the King, from the darkness below, as he spluttered
and coughed to get the water out of his mouth. "Why didn't you tell me
you were going to let go?"

"I hadn't time," said Inga, sorrowfully.

"Well, I'm not suffering from thirst," declared the King, "for there's
enough water inside me to float all the boats of Regos and Coregos--or
at least it feels that way. But never mind! So long as I'm not actually
drowned, what does it matter?"

"What shall we do next?" asked the boy anxiously.

"Call someone to help you," was the reply.

"There is no one on the island but myself," said the boy; "--excepting
you," he added, as an afterthought.

"I'm not on it--more's the pity!--but _in_ it," responded Rinkitink.
"Are the warriors all gone?"

"Yes," said Inga, "and they have taken my father and mother, and all our
people, to be their slaves," he added, trying in vain to repress a sob.

"So--so!" said Rinkitink softly; and then he paused a moment, as if in
thought. Finally he said: "There are worse things than slavery, but I
never imagined a well could be one of them. Tell me, Inga, could you let
down some food to me? I'm nearly starved, and if you could manage to
send me down some food I'd be _well_ fed--hoo, hoo, heek, keek,
eek!--well fed. Do you see the joke, Inga?"

"Do not ask me to enjoy a joke just now, Your Majesty," begged Inga in a
sad voice; "but if you will be patient I will try to find something for
you to eat."

He ran back to the ruins of the palace and began searching for bits of
food with which to satisfy the hunger of the King, when to his surprise
he observed the goat, Bilbil, wandering among the marble blocks.

"What!" cried Inga. "Didn't the warriors get you, either?"

"If they had," calmly replied Bilbil, "I shouldn't be here."

"But how did you escape?" asked the boy.

"Easily enough. I kept my mouth shut and stayed away from the rascals,"
said the goat. "I knew that the soldiers would not care for a skinny old
beast like me, for to the eye of a stranger I seem good for nothing. Had
they known I could talk, and that my head contained more wisdom than a
hundred of their own noddles, I might not have escaped so easily."

"Perhaps you are right," said the boy.

"I suppose they got the old man?" carelessly remarked Bilbil.

"What old man?"

"Rinkitink."

"Oh, no! His Majesty is at the bottom of the well," said Inga, "and I
don't k