“How’s that?” asked the sailor.  “Isn’t ‘pass’n’ away’ jus’ the same as dyin’?”

“No indeed.  When our six hundred years are ended, we march into the Great Blue Grotto, through the Arch of Phinis, and are never seen again.”

“That’s queer,” said Button-Bright.  “What would happen if you didn’t march through the Arch?”

“I do not know, for no one has ever refused to do so.  It is the Law, and we all obey it.”

“It saves funeral expenses, anyhow,” remarked Cap’n Bill.  “Where is this Arch?”

“Just outside the gates of the City.  There is a mountain in the center of the Blue land, and the entrance to the Great Blue Grotto is at the foot of the mountain.  According to our figures, the Boolooroo ought to march into this Grotto a hundred years from next Thursday, but he is trying to steal a hundred years and so perhaps he won’t enter the Arch of Phinis.  Therefore, if you will please be patient for about a hundred years, you will discover what happens to one who breaks the Law.”

“Thank’e,” remarked Cap’n Bill.  “I don’t expect to be very curious a hundred years from now.”

“Nor I,” added Button-Bright, laughing at the whimsical speech.  “But I don’t see how the Boolooroo is able to fool you all.  Can’t any of you remember two or three hundred years back when he first began to rule?”

“No,” said Ghip-Ghisizzle, “that’s a long time to remember, and we Blueskins try to forget all we can, especially whatever is unpleasant.  Those who remember are usually the unhappy ones; only those able to forget find the most joy in life.”

During this conversation they had been walking along the streets of the Blue City, where many of the Blueskin inhabitants stopped to gaze wonderingly at the sailor and the boy, whose strange appearance surprised them.  They were a nervous, restless people, and their egg-shaped heads, set on the ends of long, thin necks, seemed so grotesque to the strangers that they could scarcely forbear laughing at them.  The bodies of these people were short and round and their legs exceptionally long, so when a Blueskin walked, he covered twice as much ground at one step as Cap’n Bill or Button-Bright did.  The women seemed just as repellent as the men, and Button-Bright began to understand that the Six Snubnosed Princesses were, after all, rather better looking than most of the females of the Blue Country and so had a certain right to be proud and haughty.

There were no horses nor cows in this land, but there were plenty of blue goats, from which the people got their milk.  Children tended the goats—­wee Blueskin boys and girls whose appearance was so comical that Button-Bright laughed whenever he saw one of them.

Although the natives had never seen before this any human beings made as Button-Bright and Cap’n Bill were, they took a strong dislike to the strangers and several times threatened to attack them.  Perhaps if Ghip-Ghisizzle, who was their favorite, had not been present, they would have mobbed our friends with vicious ill-will and might have seriously injured them.  But Ghip-Ghisizzle’s friendly protection made them hold aloof.