Next moment he was dashing down the street, with the precious cloth tucked securely underneath an arm, and Mattie, being in slight dishabile, did not think best to follow him.
The triumphant joy of the WoggleBug can well be imagined. No more need he chase the fleeting vision of his love—no more submit to countless disappointments in his efforts to approach the object of his affection. The gorgeous plaids were now his own (or a large part of them, anyway), and upon reaching the quiet room wherein he lodged he gloated long and happily over its vivid coloring and violent contrasts of its glowing hues. To the eyes of the WoggleBug nothing could be more beautiful, and he positively regretted the necessity of ever turning his gaze from this bewitching treasure.
That he might never in the future be separated from the checks, he folded them, with many loving caresses, into compact form, and wrapped them in a sheet of stout paper tied with cotton cord that had a love-knot at the end. Wherever he went, thereafter, he carried the parcel underneath his left upper arm, pressed as closely to his heart as possible. And this sense of possession was so delightful that our WoggleBug was happy as the day is long.
In the evening his fortunes changed with cruel abruptness.
He walked out to take the air, and noticing a crowd people standing in an open space and surrounding a huge brown object, our WoggleBug stopped to learn what the excitement was about.
Pushing his way through the crowd, and hugging his precious parcel, he soon reached the inner circle of spectators and found they had assembled to watch a balloon ascension. The Professor who was to go up with the balloon had not yet arrived; but the balloon itself was fully inflated and tugging hard at the rope that held it, as if anxious to escape the blended breaths of the people that crowded around. Just below the balloon was a small basket, attached to the netting of the gas-bag, and the WoggleBug was bending over the edge of this, to see what it contained, when a warning cry from the crowd caused him to pause and glance over his shoulder.
Great horrors and crumpled creeps! Springing toward him, with a scowl on his face and a long knife with a zig-zag blade in his uplifted hand, was that very Chinaman from whose body he had torn the Wagnerian plaids!
The plundered Celestial was evidently vindictive, and intended to push the wicked knife into the WoggleBug’s body.
Our hero was a brave bug, as can easily be proved; but he did not wait for the knife to arrive at the broad of his back. Instead, he gave a yell (to show he was not afraid) and leaped nimbly into the basket of the balloon. The descending knife, missing its intended victim, fell upon the rope and severed it, and instantly the great balloon from the crowd and soared majestically toward the heavens.
The WoggleBug had escaped the Chinaman, but he didn’t know whether to be glad or not.
For the balloon was earning him into the clouds, and he had no idea how to manage it, or to make it descend to earth again. When he peered over the edge of the basket he could hear the faint murmur of the crowd, and dimly see the enraged Professor (who had come too late) pounding the Chinaman, while the Chinaman tried to dissect the Professor with his knife.
Then all was blotted out; clouds rolled about him; night fell. The man in the moon laughed at him; the stars winked at each other as if delighted at the WoggleBug’s plight, and a witch riding by on her broomstick yelled at him to keep on the right side of the road, and not run her down.
But the WoggleBug, squatted in the bottom of the basket and hugging his precious parcel to his bosom, paid no attention to anything but his own thoughts.
He had often ridden in the Gump; but never had he been so high as this, and the distance to the ground made him nervous.
When morning came he saw a strange country far beneath him, and longed to tread the earth again.
Now all wogglebugs are born with wings, and our highly-magnified one had a beautiful, broad pair of floppers concealed beneath ample coattails. But long ago he had learned that his wings were not strong enough to lift his big body from the ground, so he had never tried to fly with them.
Here, however, was an occasion when he might put these wings to good use, for if he spread them in the air and then leaped over the side of the basket they would act in the same way a parachute does, and bear him gently to the ground.
No sooner did this thought occur to him than he put it into practice.
Disentangling his wings from his coattails, he spread them as wide as possible and then jumped from the car of the balloon.
Down, down the WoggleBug sank; but so slowly that there was no danger in the flight. He began to see the earth again, lying beneath him like a sun-kissed panorama of mud and frog-ponds and rocks and brushwood.
There were few trees, yet it was our insect’s fate to drop directly above what trees there were, so that presently he came ker-plunk into a mass of tangled branches—and stuck there, with his legs dangling helplessly between two limbs and his wings caught in the foliage at either side.
Below was a group of Arab children, who at first started to run away. But, seeing that the queer creature which had dropped from the skies was caught fast in the tree, they stopped and began to throw stones and clubs at it. One of the missiles struck the tree-limb at the right of the WoggleBug and jarred him loose. The next instant he fluttered to the ground, where his first act was to fold up his wings and tuck them underneath his coattails again, and his next action was to assure himself that the beloved plaids were still safe.
Then he looked for the Arab children; but they had scuttled away towards a group of tents, and now several men with dark skins and gay clothing came from the tents and ran towards the WoggleBug.
“Good morning,” said our hero, removing his hat with a flourish and bowing politely.
“Meb-la-che-bah!” shouted the biggest Arab, and at once two others wound coils of rope around the WoggleBug and tied the ends in hard knots.
His hat was knocked off and trampled into the mud by the Shiek (who was the big Arab), and the precious parcel was seized and ruthlessly opened.
“Very good!” said the Shiek, eyeing the plaids with pleasure. “My slaves shall make me a new waistcoat of this cloth.”
“No! oh, no!” cried the agonized Insect; “it is taken from a person who has had small-pox and yellow-fever and toothache and mumps—all at the same time. Do not, I bet you, risk your valuable life by wearing that cloth!”
“Bah!” said the Shiek, scornfully; “I have had all those diseases and many more. I am immune. But now,” he continued, “allow me to bid you goodbye. I am sorry to be obliged to kill you, but such is our custom.”
This was bad news for the WoggleBug; but he did not despair.
“Are you not afraid to kill me?” he asked, as if surprised.
“Why should I be afraid?” demanded the Shiek.
“Because it is well-known that to kill a wogglebug brings bad luck to one.”
The Shiek hesitated, for he was very superstitious.
“Are you a wogglebug?” he asked.
“I am,” replied the Insect, proudly. “And I may as well tell you that the last person who killed one of my race had three unlucky days. The first his suspenders broke (the Arab shuddered), the second day he smashed a looking-glass (the Arab moaned), and the third day he was chewed up by a crocodile.”
Now the greatest aversion Arabs have is to be chewed by a crocodile, because these people usually roam over the sands of the desert, where to meet an amphibian is simply horrible; so at the WoggleBug’s speech they set up a howl of fear, and the Shiek shouted:
“Unbind him! Let not a hair of his head be injured!”