Wet Magic
regimentals are not red. They wear a sort of steel-blue armor, and carry arms of dreadful precision. They are terrible fellows, the 23rd, and they marched with an air at once proud and confident.
Then came the 16th Swordfish—in uniform of delicate silver, their drawn swords displayed.
The Queen's Own Gurnards were magnificent in pink and silver, with real helmets and spiked collars; and the Boy Scouts—"The Sea Urchins" as they were familiarly called—were the last of the infantry.
Then came Mer-men, mounted on Dolphins and Sea Horses, and the Cetacean Regiments, riding on their whales. Each whale carried a squadron.
"They look like great trams going by," said Francis. And so they did. The children remarked that while the infantry walked upright like any other foot soldiers, the cavalry troops seemed to be, with their mounts, suspended in the air about a foot from the ground.
"And that shows it's water," said Bernard.
"No, it doesn't," said Francis.
"Well, a whale's not a bird," said Bernard.
"And there are other things besides air and water," said Francis.
The Household Brigade was perhaps the handsomest. The Grand Salmoner led his silvery soldiers, and the 100th Halibuts were evidently the sort of troops to make the foes of anywhere "feel sorry they were born."
It was a glorious review, and when it was over the children found that they had been quite forgetting their desire to get home.
But as the back of the last Halibut vanished behind the seaweed trees the desire came back with full force. Princess Maia had disappeared. Their own Princess was, they supposed, still performing her source-service.
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