arming about her. She rang
with cries; men jumped on to her; her deck was thumped by feet. The
lonely little island was invaded from all quarters at once, and after
four weeks of silence it was bewildering to hear human speech. Mrs.
Ambrose alone heeded none of this stir. She was pale with suspense while
the boat with mail bags was making towards them. Absorbed in her letters
she did not notice that she had left the _Euphrosyne_, and felt no
sadness when the ship lifted up her voice and bellowed thrice like a cow
separated from its calf.

"The children are well!" she exclaimed. Mr. Pepper, who sat opposite
with a great mound of bag and rug upon his knees, said, "Gratifying."
Rachel, to whom the end of the voyage meant a complete change of
perspective, was too much bewildered by the approach of the shore to
realise what children were well or why it was gratifying. Helen went on
reading.

Moving very slowly, and rearing absurdly high over each wave, the little
boat was now approaching a white crescent of sand. Behind this was a
deep green valley, with distinct hills on either side. On the slope of
the right-hand hill white houses with brown roofs were settled, like
nesting sea-birds, and at intervals cypresses striped the hill with
black bars. Mountains whose sides were flushed with red, but whose
crowns were bald, rose as a pinnacle, half-concealing another pinnacle
behind it. The hour being still early, the whole view was exquisitely
light and airy; the blues and greens of sky and tree were intense but
not sultry. As they drew nearer and could distinguish details, the
effect of the earth with its minute objects and colours and different
forms of life was overwhelming after four weeks of the sea, and kept
them silent.

"Three hundred years odd," said Mr. Pepper meditatively at length.

As nobody said, "What?" he merely extracted a bottle and swallowed a
pill. The piece of information that died within him was to the effect
that three hundred years ago five Elizabethan barques had anchored where
the _Euphrosyne_ now floated. Half-drawn up upon the beach lay an equal
number of Spanish galleons, unmanned, for the country was still a virgin
land behind a veil. Slipping across the water, the English sailors
bore away bars of silver, bales of linen, timbers of cedar wood, golden
crucifixes knobbed with emeralds. When the Spaniards came down from
their drinking, a fight ensued, the two parties churning up the sand,
and driv