how do you manage about food?"

"I have plenty--far too much. Every night some one or other of my people
brings food and puts it at the entrance of the cave. They do not go near
to the cave because they believe in the serpent, not being so wise as
you are. I would not go into the cave myself were it not that I have to
die anyhow."

"But do your gods permit this?"

"I do not know. They do not care to come very near to the caves. I
myself think that they do know that food is brought to me and do not
wish to prevent it. They have only one punishment. They would not starve
me slowly. They would point the death-rod at me and burn my heart out in
an instant. But you remind me that I have become very hungry after my
swim. You also must think as I do and be hungry too, and we will eat
together."

She showed me another room nearer to the entrance where she kept her
supplies. They were simple enough. There was a pile of thin sweet
biscuit and another pile of dried fruit. This in colour and flavour was
like a raisin, but four times the size.

"That grows in the forest," said Dream. "In the autumn when the fresh
fruit is ripe it is very good indeed. I shall not live to pick any more
of it, and for that I am very sorry."

She was still, I think, rather offended with me for my disbelief in the
creature that came out of the sea, but on the whole we chatted amicably
enough. I can see now that I did a clumsy thing in thus suddenly and
crudely trying to upset a tradition in which she had grown up. It is not
perhaps very desirable to shake the faith of anybody in anything, unless
that faith be distinctly and immediately harmful. I am a simple seaman
and unused to missionary work, and it is small wonder that I bungled it.

After we had feasted, Dream went off to her bed of bracken and I once
more climbed the hill to watch the sea. All that afternoon I watched,
using at times my perspective-glass, but never once could I make out a
sail.

I may admit that my plans were now changed and that the change was
entirely due to the strong fascination which Dream had for me--far
stronger than I cared to let her know at present. I no longer cared to
explore the town or to find out more of the condition of the workers
than Dream herself could tell me. I had decided to throw in my lot with
her and, if it were possible, to save her from the cruel death with
which she was threatened. How I was to do this I did not know. I could
only wait and see