That evening an albatross flew along the horizon, making raucous sounds.
The Low Moo came up from the hold eagerly.
"A rugu bird!" she exclaimed. "Sail harder, Remo, we are almost to Moo."
"Are you sure?" asked Remo.
"There is no other land to be found under last night's stars. Only Moo. Oh, hurry. My father awaits us."
The Master of Sinanju, hearing those words, went below. He returned with a folded piece of white cotton. He laid it out on the deck and unfolded it until Remo recognized the parallelogram symbol that had been stitched into it with green sailcloth. The symbol of the House of Sinanju.
"Where'd you get that?" Remo asked.
"I made it. It will inform the people of Moo that the Master of Sinanju is coming. It will give them time to prepare a proper welcome."
"We're not there yet," Remo pointed out.
"Look again, O ye of little faith," Chiun retorted as he inserted the bamboo pole into a sleeve in one side of the cloth.
Remo looked past the complex of batten-stiffened sails. He thought he could make out a dark blue hump of land. From a distance it looked like an anthill with a flat top.
As Chiun raised the bamboo pole and the Sinanju flag began flapping and chattering in the crosswind, Remo said, "Looks awfully small for the huge island nation everyone keeps talking about."
"It is only your mind that is small," huffed Chiun as he marched to the bow, proudly waving his banner.
Chapter 13
Trailed by his retinue, the High Moo hurried to the lagoon beach. He did not run, for it would be unseemly. But he walked with such alacrity that his Red Feather Guard were hard pressed to maintain a decorous pace.
"See?" said the little boy Mann, the first to sight the great ship.
The High Moo drank in the sight. It was like no other ship he had ever seen. It was greater than the war canoes, bigger even than the ship in which his daughter had sailed. It had five poles for the sails, which were stiff and oddly shaped.
As he watched, the craft turned smartly to present its hull to the wind, and its sheer height astounded the High Moo. Sailing ships of such majesty were told of in legend. None had been seen in the lifetime of any living Moovian.
"What does it mean?" demanded the royal priest, Teihotu, as he hovered by the High Moo's ear.
"I do not know," said the High Moo, hope dying in his breast. Then the tiny figure in the bow moved to the rail and waved a banner. The wind tore at it, disturbing its emblem, but at last the High Moo discerned the age-old symbol of the House of Sinanchu.
"My daughter has returned!" he cried. "Go, priest, order the feast to start. You, guards, fetch women to beat a path from this spot to the Royal Palace. We will make my heroine daughter welcome, and treat with the Master of Sinanchu who returns to preserve my kingdom."
The priest padded off and set a runner to the village. The High Moo turned his eyes to the ship. A massive thing he understood to be an anchor was thrown overboard. And after the sails were pulled up, a small boat was lowered over the side with two figurees in it. A third scrambled down a rope and joined them, taking up the oars.
One of them, he saw, was his daughter.
"Remo, you take the oars," commanded Chiun sternly.
"Why do I always get the scut work?" Remo demanded, one eye on the Low Moo.
"It is your responsibility to get the princess and me to shore. It is not scut work. It is a privilege. When I inscribe this day's events on a scroll, you may be certain that your honored role will be fully described."
"Yeah, pulling on the oars like a galley slave," Remo complained. "You know, she thinks I'm your servant," he added. He spoke English so the princess wouldn't understand their argument.
"If you would like, I will add a codicil to my records, assuring future Masters that to the best of my knowledge you were never at any time a slave."
"It's not future Masters I'm worried about. It's her."
"Then," Chiun retorted, turning from the bow, "you will bend your back to this task with vigor so that the Low Moo may admire your efforts on her behalf."
"Up yours," said Remo, who didn't like being thought of as a slave. But he pulled at the oars while Chiun returned to his proud stance at the bow. He stood with one arm on his hip and the other holding the Sinanju banner rigid. The princess sat behind him. Remo thought Chiun looked impossibly affected, like an idealized portrait of George Washington crossing the Delaware.
The Master of Sinanju was pleased. The High Moo stood surrounded by his retinue. Women busily swept the sand clear with straw whisks. An honor guard of warriors formed two ranks to meet them.
A bronze man clad only in a loincloth splashed into the water. He took the bow in hand and helped guide it ashore. The keel scraped sand. And the boat was quickly pulled up onto dry beach so that the sandals of the Master of Sinanju would not suffer being wet.
It was as Chiun always dreamed of being greeted. By a proper emperor in a proper kingdom. Let Remo see true respect, such as Masters of Sinanju had enjoyed in times when the world was ruled correctly and Sinanju was respected from pole to pole.
Chiun set the banner into the sand. It stuck, the fabric waving proudly.
"I am Chiun, Master of Sinanju," he proclaimed. And abruptly the retinue surrounding the High Moo parted and the High Moo strode forward. His face was broad and fine, a king's visage. But his garb was not as kingly as Chiun had imagined. He had expected more clothing than a feathered breechclout. But it was summer, so Chiun decided it was not an affront if the king greeted him bare-chested. Chiun was pleased to see the golden feather that signified the crown of the High Moo. True, the crown was not, strictly speaking, a crown, but more a band of metal. Probably the original crown had been lost when Moo had sunk.
Chiun placed his long-nailed hands into his joined sleeves and bowed once to the High Moo.
And the High Moo replied in a booming voice. "I am Tu-Min-Ka, High Moo of Moo. I am pleased that my daughter has brought you."
"Not so," said Chiun. "It is I who have brought your daughter. I found her in the thrall of an evil wizard, and recognizing her as of true royal blood, rescued her from this man."
"Then I am doubly grateful," murmured the High Moo, taking his daughter into his arms. He turned away from the Master of Sinanju abruptly.
Chiun's face wrinkled. An emperor did not turn his back on the Master of Sinanju during a formal greeting ceremony. Still, this was the man's daughter, whom he had believed lost. On the other hand, a daughter is only a female who happens to be a blood relation. This was the first meeting between the Master of Sinanju and a High Moo in nearly five thousand years. One would think that the man had more respect for history than to take his daughter aside to gossip. Chiun wondered what it was they discussed, but decided that eavesdropping would not be seemly. Besides, they were too far way.
Remo drifted up beside Chiun.
"What are they saying?" he wanted to know.
"I do not know. But he is probably thanking her profusely for finding me." Chiun noticed Remo's posture. "Straighten up! Do you want the High Moo to think I have trained a laggard?"
"Yes, Master," Remo muttered unhappily.
"Are you certain, my daughter?" the High Moo whispered.
"He alone of all I met spoke our language. He remembers Old Moo."
"But the Master of Sinanju is tall and powerful. This man is elderly. And he carries no weapons."
"I do not understand it either, but I am certain it is he."