d
crossed to Panama Corner, where Una dragged up a certain padded
arm-chair for him to sit on.

The organ played softly. 'What does that music say?' he asked.

Una dropped into the chant without thinking: '"Oh, all ye works of the
Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise him and magnify him for ever." We call
it the Noah's Ark, because it's all lists of things--beasts and birds
and whales, you know.'

'Whales?' said the Archbishop quickly.

'Yes--"O ye whales, and all that move in the waters,"' Una
hummed--'"Bless ye the Lord"--it sounds like a wave turning over,
doesn't it?'

'Holy Father,' said Puck with a demure face, 'is a little seal also "one
who moves in the water"?'

'Eh? Oh yes--yess!' he laughed. 'A seal moves wonderfully in the waters.
Do the seal come to my island still?'

Puck shook his head. 'All those little islands have been swept away.'

'Very possible. The tides ran fiercely down there. Do you know the land
of the Sea-calf, maiden?'

'No--but we've seen seals--at Brighton.'

'The Archbishop is thinking of a little farther down the coast. He means
Seal's Eye--Selsea--down Chichester way--where he converted the South
Saxons,' Puck explained.

'Yes--yess; if the South Saxons did not convert me,' said the
Archbishop, smiling. 'The first time I was wrecked was on that coast. As
our ship took ground and we tried to push her off, an old fat fellow, I
remember, reared breast high out of the water, and scratched his head
with his flipper as if he were saying: "What _does_ that respectable
person with the pole think he is doing?" I was very wet and miserable,
but I could not help laughing, till the natives came down and attacked
us.'

'What did you do?' Dan asked.

'One couldn't very well go back to France, so one tried to make them go
back to the shore. All the South Saxons are born wreckers, like my own
Northumbrian folk. I was bringing over a few things for my old church at
York, and some of the natives laid hands on them, and--and I'm afraid I
lost my temper.'

'It is said,' Puck's voice was wickedly meek, 'that there was a great
fight.'

'Eh, but I must ha' been a silly lad.' Wilfrid spoke with a sudden thick
burr in his voice. He coughed, and took up his silvery tones again.
'There was no fight really. My men thumped a few of them, but the tide
rose half an hour before its time, with a strong wind, and we backed
off. What I wanted to say, though, was, that the seas about us were full
of sleek