aid. "See, there are my new
fishponds half made, and the herb garden, and the terrace that gets the
morning sun. There is the lawn which I called my quarter-deck, the place
to walk of an evening. Farewell, my little grey dwelling."

Champernoun laid a kindly hand on his shoulder.

"We will find you the mate of it in Devon, old friend," he said.

But Gaspard was not listening. "Eaucourt by the waters," he repeated
like the refrain of a song, and his eyes were full of tears.

CHAPTER 8. THE HIDDEN CITY

The two ports of the cabin were discs of scarlet, that pure translucent
colour which comes from the reflection of sunset in leagues of still
water. The ship lay at anchor under the high green scarp of an island,
but on the side of the ports no land was visible--only a circle in which
sea and sky melted into the quintessence of light. The air was very hot
and very quiet. Inside a lamp had been lit, for in those latitudes night
descends like a thunderclap. Its yellow glow joined with the red evening
to cast orange shadows. On the wall opposite the ports was a small stand
of arms, and beside it a picture of the Magdalen, one of two presented
to the ship by Lord Huntingdon; the other had been given to the wife of
the Governor of Gomera in the Canaries when she sent fruit and sugar
to the voyagers. Underneath on a couch heaped with deerskins lay the
Admiral.

The fantastic light revealed every line of the man as cruelly as spring
sunshine. It showed a long lean face cast in a high mould of pride. The
jaw and cheekbones were delicate and hard; the straight nose and the
strong arch of the brows had the authority of one who all his days
had been used to command. But age had descended on this pride, age
and sickness. The peaked beard was snowy white, and the crisp hair
had thinned from the forehead. The forehead itself was high and broad,
crossed with an infinity of small furrows. The cheeks were sallow, with
a patch of faint colour showing as if from a fever. The heavy eyelids
were grey like a parrot's. It was the face of a man ailing both in mind
and body. But in two features youth still lingered. The lips under
their thatch of white moustache were full and red, and the eyes, of
some colour between blue and grey, had for all their sadness a perpetual
flicker of quick fire.

He shivered, for he was recovering from the fifth fever he had had
since he left Plymouth. The ailment was influenza, and he called it a
calenture