tta laughed, and showed us it was
but a great-beaked grey bird with a red tail. He sat her on his shoulder,
and she called for bread and wine hoarsely, and prayed him to kiss her.
Yet she was no more than a silly bird. But--ye knew this?' He looked at
their smiling faces.

'We weren't laughing at you,' said Una. 'That must have been a parrot.
It's just what Pollies do.'

'So we learned later. But here is another marvel. The Yellow Man, whose
name was Kitai, had with him a brown box. In the box was a blue bowl with
red marks upon the rim, and within the bowl, hanging from a fine thread,
was a piece of iron no thicker than that grass stem, and as long, maybe,
as my spur, but straight. In this iron, said Witta, abode an Evil Spirit
which Kitai, the Yellow Man, had brought by Art Magic out of his own
country that lay three years' journey southward. The Evil Spirit strove
day and night to return to his country, and therefore, look you, the iron
needle pointed continually to the South.'

'South?' said Dan, suddenly, and put his hand into his pocket.

'With my own eyes I saw it. Every day and all day long, though the ship
rolled, though the sun and the moon and the stars were hid, this blind
Spirit in the iron knew whither it would go, and strained to the South.
Witta called it the Wise Iron, because it showed him his way across the
unknowable seas.' Again Sir Richard looked keenly at the children. 'How
think ye? Was it sorcery?'

'Was it anything like this?' Dan fished out his old brass pocket-compass,
that generally lived with his knife and key-ring. 'The glass has got
cracked, but the needle waggles all right, sir.'

The knight drew a long breath of wonder. 'Yes, yes. The Wise Iron shook
and swung in just this fashion. Now it is still. Now it points to the
South.'

'North,' said Dan.

'Nay, South! There is the South,' said Sir Richard. Then they both
laughed, for naturally when one end of a straight compass-needle points to
the North, the other must point to the South.

'Te,' said Sir Richard, clicking his tongue. 'There can be no sorcery if a
child carries it. Wherefore does it point South--or North?'

'Father says that nobody knows,' said Una.

Sir Richard looked relieved. 'Then it may still be magic. It was magic to
_us_. And so we voyaged. When the wind served we hoisted sail, and lay all
up along the windward rail, our shields on our backs to break the spray.
When it failed, they rowed with long oars; the