See ye, Men of the Moving Land!" the old man cried: "The stone has
fallen and our legend has come true: the King of Kings is crowned this
day!"

The Doctor too had seen the stone fall and he was now standing up
looking at the sea expectantly.

"He's thinking of the air-chamber," said Bumpo in my ear. "Let us hope
that the sea isn't very deep in these parts."

After a full minute (so long did it take the stone to fall that depth)
we heard a muffled, distant, crunching thud--and then immediately
after, a great hissing of escaping air. The Doctor, his face tense with
anxiety, sat down in the throne again still watching the blue water of
the ocean with staring eyes.

Soon we felt the island slowly sinking beneath us. We saw the sea creep
inland over the beaches as the shores went down--one foot, three feet,
ten feet, twenty, fifty, a hundred. And then, thank goodness, gently
as a butterfly alighting on a rose, it stopped! Spidermonkey Island had
come to rest on the sandy bottom of the Atlantic, and earth was joined
to earth once more.

Of course many of the houses near the shores were now under water.
Popsipetel Village itself had entirely disappeared. But it didn't
matter. No one was drowned; for every soul in the island was high up in
the hills watching the coronation of King Jong.

The Indians themselves did not realize at the time what was taking
place, though of course they had felt the land sinking beneath them.
The Doctor told us afterwards that it must have been the shock of that
tremendous shout, coming from a million throats at once, which had
toppled the Hanging Stone off its perch. But in Popsipetel history the
story was handed down (and it is firmly believed to this day) that when
King Jong sat upon the throne, so great was his mighty weight, that the
very island itself sank down to do him honor and never moved again.

PART SIX

THE FIRST CHAPTER. NEW POPSIPETEL

JONG THINKALOT had not ruled over his new kingdom for more than a couple
of days before my notions about kings and the kind of lives they led
changed very considerably. I had thought that all that kings had to
do was to sit on a throne and have people bow down before them several
times a day. I now saw that a king can be the hardest-working man in the
world--if he attends properly to his business.

From the moment that he got up, early in the morning, till the time he
went to bed, late at night--seven days in the week--John Doli