Bottles flew and smashed above my head, showering glass flecks upon Fangio, monkey and me. Great war cries welled from pirate throats, and warrior calls were returned against these by the Führer’s bully boys.

There was such a lovely row of etched-glass windows that looked out from that posh saloon bar towards a posh deck beyond and, even though I was not a betting man, I would have been prepared to put my money, if I had had any, upon these windows soon getting broken as fighting men crashed through them.

‘There goes that lovely row of etched-glass windows,’ wailed Fangio. With no one to hear him and offer a prize but me, and, it had to be faced, the Weeping and Wailing Competition was now unlikely to take place at all. Pirates and solders spilled out onto the posh deck beyond in a violent, horrid maelstrom.

And there they really got into the violence proper.

And then came strange and terrible sounds that chilled me to the marrow. I was rising from behind the bar counter, hoping that now would be my opportunity to flee from the bar and somehow save the life of Hugo Rune, when I saw the awful shapes and heard the awful cries. Great monstrous somethings were dropping down from above and wreaking a hideous havoc. In the darkness on deck, when all the light there was came only from this bar, flashes of twinkling scales were to be seen and glimpses of men being snatched up from the deck. And now the men on deck no longer fought each other. Now guns blazed into the sky and cutlasses swung above heads.

‘Whatever are those creatures?’ I asked.

But Fangio cowered below me.

Flashes of gun barrels, flashes of coloured scales, flashes of violence, flashes of death, all as in a strobe light of horror. I looked on and felt sick.

And then as suddenly as it had all begun, there was nothing. Silence only, darkness without, my father curled in a tight ball upon one side of the bar, Fangio likewise on the other and me standing there, shaking violently and peeping through my fingers.

But then a figure appeared beyond the shattered windows and waved to me and smiled, stepped into the bar and retrieved his stout stick.

For it was Hugo Rune.

The Magus entered the devastated bar and he was not alone. He was accompanied by warriors, beings of noble aspect with flowing locks of golden hair and romantic fairy-tale armour. They carried spears and antique weaponry and amongst their number was a beautiful young woman in silver trappings, a broadsword in her hand and a smile of triumph on her face.

‘Princess Roellen of Purple Fane,’ I said, recognising at once the gorgeous creature whose realm extended from the mountains of Ffafiod to the Sea of Garmillion, encompassing the forests of Caecomphap and Pemanythnod. And to whom I had played a part in returning the Ring of Power^TM, which was also known as Isildur’s Bane^TM.

‘Fair night to you, Rizla,’ called Princess Roellen. ‘My men and I will take wine, if you will kindly offer it.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I will. I will. And hello, Mr Rune.’

The Magus picked his way between broken tables and shattered glassware and joined me at the bar.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked of me. ‘No damage done at all?’

‘I am fine.’ I said. ‘But you? They were going to weight you down and throw you into the sea.’

‘And so they might well have done, had it not been for the chance but timely arrival of the beautiful Princess Roellen.’

This wonderful lady now joined us at the bar. ‘Purple Fane is but a few leagues from here,’ she said. ‘But this Magus seeks to disillusion you. I came here not by chance, but at his silent calling. He spoke a message into my dreams asking that I fly to your assistance, because his own life might already have been taken and there would be no one to save yours. He is a great magician and he clearly cares deeply for you.’

‘Well,’ said Hugo Rune. And I saw him blush. A most extraordinary sight to see and just for this one time only.

‘Drinks all round, then,’ said Fangio, fishing out unbroken glasses from beneath the bar counter and searching for unbroken bottles from which to fill them.

‘Those monsters,’ I said, ‘dropping down from the sky.’

‘Did you really see such things?’ asked Hugo Rune.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I know I did – what were they?’

‘Do you believe in dragons?’ asked Princess Roellen.

‘Dragons?’ I said. And I made a certain face.

‘Perhaps in the darkness, with all the chaos and confusion,’ said Hugo Rune. ‘There’s just no telling really, is there?’

And he raised a glass to me.

And oh what a party we had. There was some concern because Count Otto had escaped along with the field generator. But Hugo Rune said not to worry about this because he now had a plan to thwart the evil count, so we partied until dawn and all had a really good time.

Princess Roellen ordered a number of her noble warriors to dive down and free the liner’s propellers of Sargassum and others to stoke up the boilers and help get the ship back on course. And my father took himself back to the wheelhouse and stood proudly behind the wheel and vowed that the ship would wander nowhere whatsoever off course but only strike port in New York.

And so it came to be.

I removed myself to a drunken bed and did not awake until late the following afternoon. I think I would probably have slept even longer than that if I had not been awoken by the terrible noise and the very sudden shock.

I raced from my cabin up onto the deck and there met Hugo Rune. ‘Have we struck an iceberg?’ I begged to be told. ‘Are we doomed? Are we sinking? What has happened?’

‘We have arrived safely in New York, young Rizla,’ said the Magus, lighting a cigar.

‘But that noise and that shock, oh my God!’

And now we were joined by my father the captain, who had that look on his face.

‘I am sure it can be fixed,’ he said. ‘I only took my eyes off the water for a moment. I just popped to the toilet.’

‘You crashed the ship,’ I said to him.

‘Only a bit crashed, but yes.’

‘Into the Statue of Liberty.’

I had been rather looking forward to seeing the Statue of Liberty. And so I was just a little disappointed that all I ever got to see of her was her feet. As the rest of her now lay at the bottom of New York Harbour.

I said farewell then to my father, who seemed rather keen to make a speedy departure. What with, it seemed, much of the American Navy now heading in our direction.

And that was the last that I ever saw of him.

But he went out with a bang and not a whimper.

Which was something!

I looked up at Hugo Rune.

And he looked down at me.

And, ‘Welcome to America,’ he said.