The Return of the Triboldies. Part 10.

We now march triumphantly to the gates, our beasts of danger foremost. Already three of us have been blinded by the basilisk, which travels in a wheeled cage that none behind may see it.

Now we wait outside the gate; it is closed. A number of blind sentries angrily watch us from the ramparts above. The giant tortle is being brought to the gate. It stands in front of the gate as though it had just left the hostile city and the gates were shut on its tail. Writhing with anger, it sneezes, and pushing with all its might on the air it breaks down the gate ... and also several Buggers who were leaning on the gate, if one is to judge by the cries emanating from within. The tortle continues to sit on the erstwhile gate. Lazy beast! It has done nothing for years but pull down trees and move rocks for our shelter, but it sits and whines. And while it reclines, we are unable to pass through the gateway to rescue Waterlulu. More thunderclaps! The tortle is getting up; it turns itself slowly around ... the great iron gate sticks to its back ... marvellous!—and it runs into the city. More cries from within. How loquacious these Buggers are!

We are struggling through the city; it is night and we do not know where to find Waterlulu. The streets are empty; all the Buggers pretend to sleep. Cowards! One might have thought that they would try to prevent our progress. Instead, the narrowness of the streets docs that for them. As I write these signs, my wagon is wedged in a small gap between two buildings. A griffin is struggling to walk backwards down the lane through which I came three hours ago, that it may pull us out from our predicament. To my left I can hear the grunts and shouts of our people. Only myself and the two children Nenuphar and Mazinta are in the wagon. Now Buggers far above have woken; they are dropping soft red fruit on our roof. Squish! Even the children are disgusted. The griffin too is wedged in the lane; it seems to me to be pretending; it looks as if it has seized an excuse for sleep. The shouts grow fainter.

Two days we have been here. Buggers continually crawl under the wagon. The griffin has gone, I do not know where. We are not enough to leave the wagon and guard it simultaneously; therefore we stay here, watching over the most precious manuscripts and chronicles of our people. Gibberish is being uttered on six sides of us; I am totally disgusted.

[It would seem that there is a hiatus at this point in the text, K.K.]

I do not care to repeat the undignified means by which we left the foul city of Aggabug and returned to its outskirts. Dozens of us are now missing, among us Sparadrap, myself, Ocarina, my two charges, Paraphernalia, Rigmarole, Whirligig, Kanchenjunga, Charlemagne, Antimony & Coleoptera, and dozens of others. Staggering around the city walls, we met one another. So we continue to travel in circles around the city, pausing at each of the four gales in order that we may better glimpse our body. There are many questions that I should like answers to.

1. What has happened to Cantilever?

2. What has happened to Onomatopeia & Nostradamus?*

3. Quidditas & Cagliostro?

4. Phenobarbara?

5. scores of others?

6. all the rest? and many other questions besides, some of which I do not care to repeat.

Charlemagne has been talking to a Bugger. It is found that these cowardly citizens regard our people as a race of bandits, brigands, and worse. Sparadrap is much distressed by this report. For my own part I do not object to such a reputation; though it may be false, it may preserve us from attack. If there must be fear, let ourselves be feared! I told Sparadrap of my thoughts. He disagrees with my entire outlook. He turned away sadly and talked to a nearby snail. But, to continue with Charlemagne's account, he spoke with a dozen Buggers and received a score of different stories telling him where our people were. Some said we were hiding in the waterpipes of Aggabug, some said in the treetops (unlikely, since there are no trees), some told him that we lurk outside the gates, ready to pounce. Whenever we attempt to enter the city, looking for our body, the Buggers very speedily shut their gates. Our basilisk, our griffin, and our tortle are all lost inside those walls. Without such animal protection we dare do nothing. Our roc-albatross is nearby, sleeping on a large stone, but it too fears us; only Buxtehude understands it but he is lost in the city.

Rigmarole and Kanchenjunga are both saying that we should go on towards our homeland. We have the directionfinder, though it may not be correct in this varied terrain, so different from the monotony of the desert we have recentls emerged from. Kanchenjunga is at this moment suggesting to Sparadrap that our fellows may be far ahead to the east (the busiest route from Aggabug). I tend to agree, We have already waited a year and a half, as it happens. None can think of new jokes. Even the air around us begins to stale.

This afternoon Whirligig was given a dream. He was shown seventy seven thousand six hundreds and 64 of our people eating licorice in the early morning, all seated at a very long table, trying hard to remember what had just been forgotten. An agonizing dark green dream, with brownish green triangles embedded in its texture. Already a dozen theories have sprung up.

The moon has tipped itself out, and we are leaving Aggabug for the last time, led triumphantly by the tortle, which somehow has been dyed black though formerly its colour lay between blue and red. Today our people are in an unknown state; perhaps the bold 880 have split up among themselves; perhaps some are already in our homeland, led by other leaders. But I alone have behind my back the histories of our people. For that reason (and that [unclear: ou] original leader is with us) we may consider ourselves to be our own truest representatives.

We should never have left our ancestral home; we should have waited for the remaining 881 of our people to join us there instead of foolishly going in search of them. We are circumnavigating a sticky green bog; continually we mistake solid ground for mud, and become embedded. As 1 write, three wagons (including this one in which I write) are being pulled from the mud, by six animals borrowed from other wagons.

I think it must have been a dream that we arrived at our homeland; I dare not ask anybody for fear of being regarded as in my dotage. However it may be that my impression of the homeland is prophetic; therefore I record it here.

(The fictitious ancestral homeland of which I have spoken is situated on the left buttock; it is a very large town which is in the shape of an annulus; the inside edge of the annulus would take perhaps one day to walk around, if three men were walking. Enclosed by the annulus is a large overgrown area; this is our homeland, which has been left untouched for thousands of years by the inhabitants of the annulus-town: they understand that this overgrown circle is the homeland of our people, containing within it three hilltops, many ruins, and a large tunnel emerging outside the annulustown).

* Devoutly I hope that Nostradamus has not lost the object of our timepiece nor the count of our time.