d
to play the piano and teach the choir. There were always tears in her
eyes when she played that particular tune. The girls understood that
in some way it meant a great deal to her, was perhaps the tune of some
national song, captured by an English musician and set to the words of
a popular hymn. The Queen had never thought much about the matter. Now
it occurred to her that the sailors were singing the song which the
German governess had in mind, a song so popular that they often sang
it at their work. Kalliope had learned it from them when they first
visited the island. They recognized it and joined in it when they
heard her singing it.

Kalliope rowed slowly round the steamer. An engine on deck began to
work. The Queen could hear it snorting and clanking. The boat crossed
the ship's bows, passing under the length of hose which drooped in a
long curve into the water. Suddenly the hose swelled, writhed,
twisted. It seemed to be alive. It looked like some huge sea snake,
wriggling from the ship into the water, swimming through the water
towards the gloomy mouth of the cave. Kalliope stopped rowing and
stared open-mouthed. The Queen realized almost at once what was
happening. The engine on the steamer's deck was pumping some liquid
through the hose.

Kalliope held her dripping oars above the water and stared at the
writhing hose. The boat lay still. The Queen remembered what her
father had said at breakfast. The steamer might have come to the
island for water. It was possible that the engine was sucking water in
through the hose, not driving some other liquid out through it. But
the Queen could not remember any spring or well of fresh water in the
cave. She signed to Kalliope. The girl dipped her oars again. The boat
moved towards the entrance of the cave.

One of the ship's boats, with four men in her, lay right under the
high archway of the entrance. A man stood up and signed to the Queen,
shaking his head.

"_Es ist verboten_," he said.

Then, with gestures which could not be mistaken he repeated gruffly,
"_Verboten._"

To the Queen it seemed absurd that a strange sailor should try to
prevent her from rowing into a cave in her own island whenever she
chose. She took no notice of the man. Kalliope rowed on. Two of the
men in the ship's boat leaned over her side and caught Kalliope's
oars.

Kalliope was a young woman of imperturbably good temper. She smiled
amiably at the men and then turned to the Queen.