rom?" asked he.

"Out of a book," said she.

"Got any more?" he asked.

"Plenty," she replied casting round in her mind, and wondering how it
happens that children's stories run so frequently to blood and ferocity.

She remembered Anatole France's story of the juggler who juggled before
the shrine of Our Lady, having no better offering to make to her, and
Raft sat spellbound, after having made out that Our Lady was the Virgin
Mary, the patron of Catholic shipmates. She told it so well and so
simply, with unobtrusive foot notes as to monasteries and their
contents, that he could not but see the point, the poor man having
nothing to offer but his stock in trade of tricks, offered it.

Well, what of that? It was the best he had, and, if she could see the
other chaps doing things for her, she could see him. The story, whose
whole point lies in the supposed non-existence of the virgin as a
discerning being, ought to cast its gentle ridicule not on the ignorant
juggler but on the more learned brethren of the monastery. To Raft they
were all in the same boat, and as to whether she could see them or not
he didn't know.

The story fell flat, horribly flat, told to the absolutely simple
hearted, and to the Teller, after explanations were over, it seemed that
the Listener had in some way cut open modern genius and exposed a little
tricky mechanism working on a view point of chilled steel.

That Raft, in fact, was so big in a formless way that he was much above
the story.

She remedied her blunder on the next storytelling occasion with Blue
Beard.

Then the weather broke fair and the islands drew away and the clouds
rose high and the white terns, always flitting like dragon-flies amidst
the other birds, rose like the clouds, they always flew higher in fine
weather, and with the smooth seas a new thing shewed like a sign: the
little sea elephants were no longer confining themselves to the river
and near shore. Some of them were taking boldly to the sea. Their small
heads could be seen sometimes quite a long way out.

This fact gave the girl food for thought. The summer was getting on.

It almost seemed that Ponting was right, that no ships would venture
into that sea between the islands and the shore, and that their only
hope of rescue lay in that bay away to the west, heaven knew how far.

Then an idea came to her. Two ships had already been here for certain:
the wreck and the ship of Captain Slocum, then there was th