-SERPENT
6 EXPLORING THE OCEAN
7 THE ARISTOCRATIC CODFISH
8 A BANQUET UNDER WATER
9 THE BASHFUL OCTOPUS
10 THE UNDISCOVERED ISLAND
11 ZOG THE TERRIBLE AND HIS SEA DEVILS
12 THE ENCHANTED ISLAND
13 PRISONERS OF THE SEA MONSTER
14 CAP'N JOE AND CAP'N BILL
15 THE MAGIC OF THE MERMAIDS
16 THE TOP OF THE GREAT DOME
17 THE QUEEN'S GOLDEN SWORD
18 A DASH FOR LIBERTY
19 KING ANKO TO THE RESCUE
20 THE HOME OF THE OCEAN MONARCH
21 KING JOE
22 TROT LIVES TO TELL THE TALE

CHAPTER 1

TROT AND CAP'N BILL

"Nobody," said Cap'n Bill solemnly, "ever sawr a mermaid an' lived
to tell the tale."

"Why not?" asked Trot, looking earnestly up into the old sailor's
face.

They were seated on a bench built around a giant acacia tree that
grew just at the edge of the bluff. Below them rolled the blue waves
of the great Pacific. A little way behind them was the house, a neat
frame cottage painted white and surrounded by huge eucalyptus and
pepper trees. Still farther behind that--a quarter of a mile distant
but built upon a bend of the coast--was the village, overlooking a
pretty bay.

Cap'n Bill and Trot came often to this tree to sit and watch the
ocean below them. The sailor man had one "meat leg" and one "hickory
leg," and he often said the wooden one was the best of the two. Once
Cap'n Bill had commanded and owned the "Anemone," a trading schooner
that plied along the coast; and in those days Charlie Griffiths, who
was Trot's father, had been the Captain's mate. But ever since Cap'n
Bill's accident, when he lost his leg, Charlie Griffiths had been
the captain of the little schooner while his old master lived
peacefully ashore with the Griffiths family.

This was about the time Trot was born, and the old sailor became
very fond of the baby girl. Her real name was Mayre, but when she
grew big enough to walk, she took so many busy little steps every
day that both her mother and Cap'n Bill nicknamed her "Trot," and so
she was thereafter mostly called.

It was the old sailor who taught the child to love the sea, to love
it almost as much as he and her father did, and these two, who
represented the "beginning and the end of life," became firm friends
and constant companions.

"Why hasn't anybody seen a mermaid and lived?" asked Trot again.

"'Cause mermaids is fairies, an' ain't meant to be seen by us mortal
folk," replied Cap'n Bill.

"But if anyone happens