g, and the two held
an earnest and long talk together. Meantime, Cap'n Bill had the army
assembled in the Court of the Statues, where Queen Mayre appeared and
told the Pinkies that the sailorman was to be Commander in Chief of the
Expedition and all must obey his commands. Then Cap'n Bill addressed
the army and told them what the Fog Bank was like. He advised them all
to wear their raincoats over their pretty pink clothes so they would
not get wet, and he assured them that all the creatures to be met with
in the Fog were perfectly harmless.

"When we come to the Blue Country, though," he added, "you're liable to
be pretty busy. The Blueskins are tall an' lanky, an' ugly an' fierce,
an' if they happen to capture you, you'll all be patched, which is a
deep disgrace an' a uncomfortable mix-up."

"Will they throw us over the edge?" asked Captain Tintint.

"I don't think so," replied Cap'n Bill. "While I was there I never
heard the edge mentioned. They're cruel enough to do that--'specially
the Boolooroo--but I guess they've never thought o' throwin' folks over
the edge. They fight with long cords that have weights on the ends,
which coil 'round you an' make you helpless in a jiffy; so whenever
they throw them cords you mus' ward 'em off with your long sticks.
Don't let 'em wind around your bodies, or you're done for."

He told them other things about the Blueskins, so they would not be
frightened when they faced the enemy and found them so different in
appearance from themselves, and also he assured them that the Pinkies
were so much the braver and better armed that he had no doubt they
would easily conquer.

On the third day, just at sunrise, the army moved forward to the Fog
Bank, headed by Cap'n Bill, clad in an embroidered pink coat with wide,
flowing pink trousers, and accompanied by Trot and Button-Bright and
Rosalie the Witch, all bundled up in their pink raincoats. The parrot
was there, too, as the bird refused to be left behind.

They had not advanced far into the deep fog when they were halted by a
queer barrier consisting of a long line of gigantic frogs, crouching so
close together that no Pinkie could squeeze between them. As the heads
of the frogs were turned the other way, toward the Blue Country, the
army could not at first imagine what the barrier was. But Rosalie said
to them, "Our friends the frogs have agreed to help us through the Fog
Bank. Climb upon their backs, as many on each frog as are able