They had gone but a short distance
and had come to an opening in the trees, when Daimur
said.
“I see a field of potatoes on
that slope about two miles away.”
“Potatoes!” exclaimed Cyril. “How
can you see so far?”
“Oh, it is quite easy with these
spectacles on,” said Daimur. “Let
us go and see them.”
They set out, and after a long and
tiresome walk through tangled underbrush Daimur found
himself on the edge of the potato field. King
Cyril resting on a branch beside him.
“Now, if I only had a spade,”
said Daimur, as he fell to looking about for a sharp
stick or anything which would dig up the earth.
After quite a search he found, half buried in sand
and dead leaves, an old spade with part of the handle
gone.
“What good luck!” he exclaimed,
as he seized it and commenced digging up a hill of
potatoes, and he soon had a large mound of them on
the ground.
Then the question was where to put
them, as it would never do to let the Evil Magician
suspect that Daimur was not going to eat the charmed
fruit, but was taking his potatoes instead.
After searching about for half an
hour they suddenly broke through the trees and found
themselves on a shore, the like of which they had never
seen before. It was wild and rocky and barren,
and some of the rocks were of very curious shapes.
A few were high and conical, like caves, and had
smooth flat floors.
They began to look for a cave in the
rocks near the shore, and at last found one at the
foot of a great tree which overshadowed it. This
cave had an opening in front looking out to the sea.
King Cyril flew into the air as high
as he could and looked for the hill where they knew
the Magician lived. He was quite breathless when
he came down, but he said that the hill was away at
the other end of the island, and that they were facing
the south.
“Then we must be looking towards
the Island of Laurel,” said Daimur, “and
these must be some of the rocks on which ships are
often wrecked.”
“Do you think,” he continued
as he looked about him, “that if we were to
make a fire in the cave the Magician could see the
smoke?”
“I do not know,” answered
King Cyril, “it might be very risky to try;
but anyway let us see if there is not another entrance
to the cave.”
He flew around it carefully, pulling
away the bushes which grew close to it with his beak,
and at last called Daimur to come and see the nice
back door he had discovered, for the cave ran for some
distance into the earth, and at the end of it, behind
some shrubs, was another opening about five feet high.
“Now,” said Daimur, “we
can come and go from this end and there will be no
danger of the Magician seeing us.”
With grateful hearts they went back
to get their potatoes.