nic and tried again.

However, he succeeded no better than before and when he heard Bilbil
give a gruff laugh and saw a smile upon the boy Prince's face,
Rinkitink suddenly dropped the oars and began shouting with laughter at
his own defeat. As he wiped his brow with a yellow silk handkerchief he
sang in a merry voice:

"A sailor bold am I, I hold,
But boldness will not row a boat.
So I confess I'm in distress
And just as useless as the goat."

"Please leave me out of your verses," said Bilbil with a snort of anger.

"When I make a fool of myself, Bilbil, I'm a goat," replied Rinkitink.

"Not so," insisted Bilbil. "Nothing could make you a member of my
superior race."

"Superior? Why, Bilbil, a goat is but a beast, while I am a King!"

"I claim that superiority lies in intelligence," said the goat.

Rinkitink paid no attention to this remark, but turning to Inga he said:

"We may as well get back to the shore, for the boat is too heavy to row
to Gilgad or anywhere else. Indeed, it will be hard for us to reach
land again."

"Let me take the oars," suggested Inga. "You must not forget our
bargain."

"No, indeed," answered Rinkitink. "If you can row us to Regos, or to
any other place, I will go with you without protest."

So the King took Inga's place at the stern of the boat and the boy
grasped the oars and commenced to row. And now, to the great wonder of
Rinkitink--and even to Inga's surprise--the oars became light as
feathers as soon as the Prince took hold of them. In an instant the
boat began to glide rapidly through the water and, seeing this, the boy
turned its prow toward the north. He did not know exactly where Regos
and Coregos were located, but he did know that the islands lay to the
north of Pingaree, so he decided to trust to luck and the guidance of
the pearls to carry him to them.

Gradually the Island of Pingaree became smaller to their view as the
boat sped onward, until at the end of an hour they had lost sight of it
altogether and were wholly surrounded by the purple waters of the
Nonestic Ocean.

Prince Inga did not tire from the labor of rowing; indeed, it seemed to
him no labor at all. Once he stopped long enough to place the poles of
the canopy in the holes that had been made for them, in the edges of
the boat, and to spread the canopy of silver over the poles, for
Rinkitink had complained of the sun's heat. But the canopy shut out the
hot rays and rendered the interior