we pretended we
were sick: do you think they would take us also from this stuffy house?'

"'Brother,' said she wearily, 'that they might do. But most likely they
would throw us on a rubbish-heap, where we would die in the hot sun.'

"'But,' said I, 'why should they go abroad to seek a rubbish-heap,
when the harbor is so close? While we were being brought here I saw men
throwing their rubbish into the water. If they would only throw us also
there, we could quickly reach the sea.'

"'The Sea!' murmured poor Clippa with a faraway look in her eyes (she
had fine eyes, had my sister, Clippa). 'How like a dream it sounds--the
Sea! Oh brother, will we ever swim in it again, think you? Every night
as I lie awake on the floor of this evil-smelling dungeon I hear its
hearty voice ringing in my ears. How I have longed for it! Just to feel
it once again, the nice, big, wholesome homeliness of it all! To jump,
just to jump from the crest of an Atlantic wave, laughing in the trade
wind's spindrift, down into the blue-green swirling trough! To chase
the shrimps on a summer evening, when the sky is red and the light's all
pink within the foam! To lie on the top, in the doldrums' noonday calm,
and warm your tummy in the tropic sun! To wander hand in hand once
more through the giant seaweed forests of the Indian Ocean, seeking the
delicious eggs of the pop-pop! To play hide-and-seek among the castles
of the coral towns with their pearl and jasper windows spangling the
floor of the Spanish Main! To picnic in the anemone-meadows, dim blue
and lilac-gray, that lie in the lowlands beyond the South Sea Garden!
To throw somersaults on the springy sponge-beds of the Mexican Gulf! To
poke about among the dead ships and see what wonders and adventures lie
inside!--And then, on winter nights when the Northeaster whips the water
into froth, to swoop down and down to get away from the cold, down to
where the water's warm and dark, down and still down, till we spy the
twinkle of the fire-eels far below where our friends and cousins sit
chatting round the Council Grotto--chatting, Brother, over the news and
gossip of THE SEA!... Oh--'

"And then she broke down completely, sniffling.

"'Stop it!' I said. 'You make me homesick. Look here: let's pretend
we're sick--or better still, let's pretend we're dead; and see what
happens. If they throw us on a rubbish-heap and we fry in the sun, we'll
not be much worse off than we are here in this smelly priso