y! Yes! we were both at that divine moment
which hangs like a dew-drop in the morning sun--ah! all too ready to
fall. O! keep it poised, in that miraculous balance, 'twixt Time and
Eternity--for this crystal made of light and dew is the meaning of the
life of man and woman upon the earth.

As we came to the borders of the wood, near the edge of the little town,
we called a counsel of two. As the outcome of it, we concluded that,
having in mind the "King's" ambitious plans for our cloth-of-gold
future, and for other obvious reasons, it was better that she went into
the town alone--I to await her in the shadow of the mahogany tree.

As she turned to leave me, she drew up from her bosom a little bag that
hung by a silver chain, and, opening it, drew out, with a laugh--a
golden doubloon!

I sprang toward her; but she was too quick for me, and laughingly
vanished through an opening in the trees. I was not to kiss her that
day.

CHAPTER VIII

_News!_

Calypso was so long coming back that I began to grow anxious--was,
indeed, on the point of going into the town in search of her; when she
suddenly appeared, rather out of breath, and evidently a little
excited--as though, in fact, she had been running away from something.
She caught me by the arm, with a laugh:

"Do you want to see your friend Tobias?" she said.

"Tobias! Impossible!"

"Come here," and she led me a yard or two back the way she had come, and
then cautiously looked through the trees.

"Gone!" she said, "but he was there a minute or two ago--or at least
some one that is his photograph--and, of course, he's there yet, hidden
in the brush, and probably got his eyes on us all the time. Did you see
that seven-year apple tree move?"

"His favourite tree," I laughed.

"Hardly strong enough to hang him on though." And I realised that she
was King Alcinoues's daughter.

We crouched lower for a moment or two, but the seven-year apple tree
didn't move again, and we agreed that there was no use in waiting for
Tobias to show his hand.

"He is too good a poker-player," I said.

"Like his skeletons, eh?" she said.

"But what made you think it was Tobias?" I asked, "and how did it all
happen?"

"I could hardly fail to recognise him from your flattering description,"
she answered, "and indeed it all happened rather like another experience
of mine. I had gone into Sweeney's store--you remember?--and was just
paying my bill."

"In the usual coinage?