Slowly and steadily it came; now it reached the level of the dome, now it hung below it; down, down, down it came, past the level of their eager eyes and splashed in the water close by the ship.

It was a large empty bucket.

The rope which held it was jerked from above; the bucket dipped and filled and was drawn up again slowly and steadily till it disappeared in the hole in the roof.
'Quick,' said the parrot, 'get the ship exactly under the hole, and next time the bucket comes down you can go up in it.' 'This is out of the _Arabian Nights_, I think,' said Lucy, when the yacht was directly under the hole in the roof.

'But who is it that keeps on opening the books?
Somebody must be pulling Polistopolis down.' 'The Pretenderette, I shouldn't wonder,' said Philip gloomily.

'She isn't the Deliverer, so she must be the Destroyer.