. The head of the
Diamond Swan had a bill of polished gold and its eyes were two
sparkling amethysts.
"Hooray!" cried the Su-dic, dancing up and down with wicked glee. "My
poor wife, Rora, is avenged at last. You made her a Golden Pig,
Coo-ee-oh, and now I have made you a Diamond Swan. Float on your lake
forever, if you like, for your web feet can do no more magic and you
are as powerless as the Pig you made of my wife!
"Villain! Scoundrel!" croaked the Diamond Swan. "You will be punished
for this. Oh, what a fool I was to let you enchant me!
"A fool you were, and a fool you are!" laughed the Su-dic, dancing
madly in his delight. And then he carelessly tipped over the other
copper vessel with his heel and its contents spilled on the sands and
were lost to the last drop.
The Su-dic stopped short and looked at the overturned vessel with a
rueful countenance.
"That's too bad--too bad!" he exclaimed sorrowfully. "I've lost all the
poison I had to kill the fishes with, and I can't make any more because
only my wife knew the secret of it, and she is now a foolish Pig and
has forgotten all her magic."
"Very well," said the Diamond Swan scornfully, as she floated upon the
water and swam gracefully here and there. "I'm glad to see you are
foiled. Your punishment is just beginning, for although you have
enchanted me and taken away my powers of sorcery you have still the
three magic fishes to deal with, and they'll destroy you in time, mark
my words."
The Su-dic stared at the Swan a moment. Then he yelled to his men:
"Shoot her! Shoot the saucy bird!"
They let fly some arrows at the Diamond Swan, but she dove under the
water and the missiles fell harmless. When Coo-ce-oh rose to the
surface she was far from the shore and she swiftly swam across the lake
to where no arrows or spears could reach her.
The Su-dic rubbed his chin and thought what to do next. Near by floated
the submarine in which the Queen had come, but the Skeezers who were in
it were puzzled what to do with themselves. Perhaps they were not sorry
their cruel mistress had been transformed into a Diamond Swan, but the
transformation had left them quite helpless. The under-water boat was
not operated by machinery, but by certain mystic words uttered by
Coo-ee-oh. They didn't know how to submerge it, or how to make the
water-tight shield cover them again, or how to make the boat go back to
the castle, or make it enter the little basement room where
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