“Don’t listen to him, boy,” growled Mr. Sheperton.
“I don’t see how they’ve managed to avoid being seen, anyway, before this,” said Rolf. “You ought to be able to see that oil slick and boat smoke from a ranger plane pretty easily.”
He turned to look suspiciously at Baneen.
“Now, now!” cried the gremlin. “It was just the slightest touch of magic we’ve used in their favor, to be sure—just enough to keep them from being seen. Nothing invisible, mind you. Just a wee distraction or two to make the patrol rangers look the other way as they fly past the noise and dirt. But just a minute. Wait right here—”
He disappeared with a popping noise.
“Let’s not wait for him, Shep—Mr. Sheperton, I mean,” said Rolf.
“Quite right!” rumbled Mr. Sheperton. “Enough of the blackguard’s lies and evasions—”
Baneen popped back into existence, pulling along with him another gremlin—also wearing green, it was true, but with a long, sad, greenish blue cloak around his shoulders, long dark hair hanging down under his hat, and a violin case under his arm.
“Rolf, let me—” puffed Baneen, breathlessly, “introduce that grand—gremlin musician— O’Kkane Baro.”
The other gremlin took his hat off his head and swept it before him as he bowed gracefully. He had a handsome, if tragic, face.
“Glorious to acquaint you!” he cried, in a rich, full voice, “Glorious! If my heart was not breaking, I would dance with joy. But who dances in a world like this? I ask you!”
He sat down mournfully in the sand, laying the violin case aside. Rolf stared at him.
“Hist!” whispered Mr. Sheperton in his ear. “Don’t let this rascal fool you, either. He’s a gypsy gremlin. Do you know what Hokkane Baro means, in the Romany tongue?”
“Ah, but the heart of our poor friend is indeed breaking,” said Baneen sorrowfully. “All these thousands of years that he has lived, now, only in the hope of seeing Gremla again—”
“Ah, Gremla, my sunshine, my beautiful!” exclaimed O’Kkane Baro resonantly, covering his eyes with one hand. “Never to see you again. Never… never!”
“Hokkane Baro means,” whispered Mr. Sheperton severely, “the big trick, a con game they used to play on gullible peasants.”
Rolf nodded. He had no doubt that Mr. Sheperton was right. But O’Kkane Baro’s unhappiness was so convincing he began to feel a twinge of guilt in spite of himself.
“You’ll see it,” he said to the dark-haired gremlin. “Don’t worry.”
“Ah, but will he?” said Baneen. “Now that you’re determined and all to report what you’ve seen. Sure, and it’s only a matter of minutes after the authorities come prowling around here that our magic will be spoiled and our last chance at Gremla lost for good.”
“Ah…” said O’Kkane Baro, unshielding his eyes. “But, why should we weep?” he spread his arms. “Let us laugh… ha, ha!” Rolf thought he had never heard such mournful laughter in his life.
“Yes, laugh!” cried O’Kkane Baro, rising to his feet. “Laugh, dance, be gay—sing! Music!”
He clapped his hands; at the sound, the lid of his violin case opened and a gremlin-sized violin floated out and up into the air. A gremlin-sized bow floated after it and poised itself over the strings.
“Play, gypsy!” commanded O’Kkane Baro, stamping his foot on the sand. The violin began to play, a wild, thrilling air. “Weep, gypsy—” The violin switched suddenly to wailing chords. Tears began to run down O’Kkane Baro’s cheeks.
“Gremla… lovely Gremla… nevermore shall we set eyes upon thee…” he sobbed.
The music was overwhelming. Baneen was also crying. Tears were running as well out of Mr. Sheperton’s nose and Rolf was blinking desperately to keep from joining them in tears.
“Wait…” begged Rolf. “Wait…”
“Why wait?” keened Baneen. “All is over. And just because someone could not go two days before reporting some scoundrels. Ah, the whole gremlin race, robbed of its last, last chance! Didn’t I say we’d see none of the animals or birds would come to harm? But did that soften the hard heart of someone I need not name? No—”
“Wait!” gulped Rolf. “All right. Two days. I can wait two days—but stop that violin!”
“Ah yes, stop the instrument, O’Kkane Baro!” sobbed Baneen. “It’s myself can barely stand the sorrow of it, either.”
Weeping, O’Kkane Baro waved at the violin, which stopped playing and packed itself, with its bow, back into its case. In the silence, a high-pitched voice, the voice of the boat captain came clearly to their ears.
“…there! Right over the ridge there. Don’t just stand there, get over after them! You heard the music coming from there until just a second ago!”
Rolf leaped to his feet and stared over the crest of the dune. The two sailors they had seen, the boat captain right behind them, were coming toward the dune. They all shouted when they saw Rolf.
“They spotted me!” Rolf cried. “What’ll we do now?”
“Try an old gremlin trick, lad,” advised the voice of Baneen behind him. “Run!”
7
Rolf took a fast look at the two burly sailors climbing the dune toward him. He started running down the other side of the dune, but the loose sand slowed him down.
He glanced over his shoulder and saw that the sailors had topped the rise and weren’t far behind him. And they were gaining fast.
Baneen was dithering around, running in excited circles, waving his hands helplessly.
And Mr. Sheperton?
Rolf heard the dog barking furiously, the way he barked at automobiles that went down their home street too fast. Turning slightly, Rolf saw Mr. Sheperton charging at the two sailors, his bared teeth looking ferocious, even in his fuzzy mop of a head.
The sailors backed off for a moment. Mr. Sheperton surprised them, maybe even scared them. Then one of them pulled something long and menacing from his belt. Rolf couldn’t tell whether it was a knife or a club.
“Shep… no!”
But Mr. Sheperton wasn’t backing away. As long as Rolf was in danger, and he himself was conscious, the dog would attack the sailors.
“Baneen… do something!”
Suddenly Mr. Sheperton’s open mouth started to spout foam. His barking began to sound more like gargling.
The sailor with the club, or whatever it was, went round-eyed.
“Mad dog!” he yelled. Spinning around, he raced back toward the safety of the boat. His friend went with him.
Mr. Sheperton raced after them, nipping at their heels, until they got to the top of the dune. Then he stood his ground and barked at them several more times. Rolf knew what Mr. Sheperton was saying:
“And don’t come back! Blackguards! Cowards!”
Satisfied that everything was in proper shape, Mr. Sheperton trotted back down the sandy hill to Rolf and Baneen. Only then did Rolf realize that if the dog was really foaming at the mouth, it meant he was seriously ill.
“Shep… are you… ?”
“I don’t know how many times it will be necessary to tell you,” the dog said, a bit cross and out of wind, “that my name is Mr. Sheperton. And you, Baneen, if you don’t mind, would you kindly remove this ridiculous shaving lather you’ve put on my face? Tastes of lime. Ugh.”
“Ah, for such a grand hero as yourself, Mr. Sheperton, it was hardly necessary for me to do anything at all.” Baneen wiggled his fingers and the foam instantly dried into crystal flakes that were carried away by the wind.
And suddenly Rolf dropped to his knees and hugged the shaggy old dog. “Shep, Shep… I thought you were sick.”