to smile.

"The very same, my Lord Ulysses," answered my friend.

And so I came to understand that Mr. Sweeney's reluctance in selling me
that doubloon was not so sinister as it had, at the moment, appeared;
that it had in fact come of a loyalty which was already for me the most
precious of all loyalties.

"Then," said I, "as a fitting conclusion to the confidence you have
reposed in me, my Lord Alcinoues; if Miss Calypso would have the kindness
to let us have a sight of that chest of beaten copper of which you
spoke, I would like to restore this, that was once a part of its
contents, wherever the rest of them" (and I confess that I paused a
moment) "may be in hiding."

And I took from my pocket the sacred doubloon that I had bought from
John Sweeney--may Heaven have mercy upon his soul!--for sixteen dollars
and seventy-five cents, on that immortal evening.

CHAPTER VII

_In Which the "King" Dreams a Dream--and Tells Us About It._

The afternoon, under the spell of its various magic, had been passing
all too swiftly, and at length I grew reluctantly aware that it was time
for me to be returning once more to the solid, not to say squalid,
earth; but, as I made a beginning of my farewell address, King Alcinoues
raised his hand with a gesture that could not be denied. It was not to
be heard of, he said. I must be their guest till to-morrow, sans
argument. To begin with, for all the golden light still in the garden,
with that silver wand of the fountain laid upon the stillness like a
charm, it was already night among the palms, he said, and blacker than
our friend Erebus in the woods--and there was no moon.

"No moon?" I said, and, though the remark was meaningless, one might
have thought, from Calypso's face--in which rose colour fought with a
suggestion of submerged laughter--that it had a meaning.

If I had found it difficult going at high noon, he continued, with an
immense sunlight overhead, how was I going to find it with the sun gone
head-long into the sea, as was about to happen in a few moments. When
the light that is in thee has become darkness, how great is that
darkness! _Si ergo lumen quod in te est tenebrae sunt, ipsae tenebrae
quantae erunt!_ And he settled it, as he settled everything, with a
whimsical quotation.

He had not yet, he said, shown me that haunt of the wild bees, where the
golden honey now took the place of that treasure of golden money; and
there were also other curiosities