Sky Island was not a very big place, especially the blue part of it, and our friends were now very close to the low mountain. Presently they paused before a grim archway of blue marble, above which was carved the one word: "Phinis." The interior seemed dark and terrible as they stopped to regard it as a possible place of refuge.
"Don't like that place, Cap'n," whispered Trot.
"I think I'd rather take a chance on the Fog Bank," said Button-Bright.
Just then they were all startled by a swift flapping of wings, and a voice cried in shrill tones:
"Where are you, Trot? As like as not I've been forgot!"
Cap'n Bill jumped this way and Button-Bright that, and then there alighted on Trot's shoulder the blue parrot that had been the pet of the Princess Cerulia.
"Gee! I've flown Here all alone. It's pretty far, But here we are!"
and then he barked like a dog and chuckled with glee at having found his little friend.
In escaping from the palace Trot had been obliged to leave all the pets behind her, but it seemed that the parrot had found some way to get free and follow her. They were all astonished to hear the bird talk--and in poetry, too--but Cap'n Bill told Trot that some parrots he had known had possessed a pretty fair gift of language, and he added that this blue one seemed an unusually bright bird.
"As fer po'try," said he, "that's as how you look at po'try. Rhymes come from your head, but real po'try from your heart, an' whether the blue parrot has a heart or not he's sure got a head."
Having decided not to venture into the Arch of Phinis they again started on, this time across the country straight toward the Fog Bank, which hung like a blue-gray cloud directly across the center of the island. They knew they were being followed by bands of the Blueskins, for they could hear the shouts of their pursuers growing louder and louder every minute, since their long legs covered the ground more quickly than our friends could possibly go. Had the journey been much farther the fugitives would have been overtaken, but when the leaders of the pursuing Blueskins were only a few yards behind them they reached the edge of the Fog Bank and without hesitation plunged into its thick mist, which instantly hid them from view.