azzlingly white, and made
all of dew which was heavenly cool. Gallantly the _Hispaniola_ plunged
into it, sending the bits of cloud from her in a milky spray, but
catching some of them upon her sides and sails, so that as she came
forth into the sun again, she seemed set with all of Aladdin's
diamonds!

"On, and on, and on, and on!" Johnnie commanded. (He had no time even
for a slice of watermelon!) Oh, how wonderful to think that there was no
shore ahead upon which Jim Hawkins's ship would need to beach! that
Johnnie and his friends could go on sailing and sailing for as long as
they chose!

"Look out for the Great Bear and the Bull!"--another command for the
_Hispaniola_, for now that the ship was higher, she was passing among
the stars, all as perfectly round as so many toy balloons, all
marvelously luminous, and each most accommodatingly marked across its
round, golden face (in great, black, capital letters!) with its
name--MARS, JUPITER, SATURN, VENUS.

It seemed to Johnnie as if he were meeting old friends. "Oh, Arcturus!"
he hailed. "Aldebaran! Neptune!"

"Johnnie, don't bump the Moon!" cried the Prince and his gentlemen,
waving their canes.

"Y' betcher life I won't!"

Any large body, the good ship most considerately avoided. As for the
small ones, which had no names on them, if she struck one, it glanced
off of her like a red-gold spark.

"Aw, gee!" cried Johnnie, easing his tortured little body by a shift of
his weight across the table edge; "this is jus' fine!"

CHAPTER XXXII

HELP

KNOCK! knock! knock! knock!

At the first knock of the four, a sparrow to whom Johnnie had, for this
long while, been giving good-turn crumbs, made a scrambling get-away
from the window sill, followed in the same instant by a neat, brown mate
who was equally startled at such a noise from somewhere just within. For
dawn was only now coming upon the thousands of roofs that shelter the
people of the Greatest City, the sun being still far down behind a
sea-covered bulge of the world. And this was an hour when, usually, only
early birds were abroad.

Rap! rap! rap! rap! rap! The summons was louder, more insistent, and
quite unmistakably cross.

It roused Cis, and she lifted her head, and drew in a long, fluttering
breath; but she was too stiff and weary and sore even to realize that a
visitor was at the hall door. Once more she laid a pale, tear-stained
cheek upon the table.

Bang! bang! bang! _BANG!_

No