ll and its ways too evil for its people, and that much might be done
in the way of the regeneration of human society under softer
surroundings and beneath purer skies. His hope, his belief, was that if
a colony of earnest human beings were to be founded, established upon
true principles of justice and of virtue, it might set an example which
would spread and spread until at last it should regenerate the earth.

It was a noble scheme indeed, prompted by a kindly and honourable
nature, and I must say that it sounded very well as the periods swelled
from Captain Amber's lips. For Captain Amber was a scholar and a
gentleman as well as a man of action, and he spoke and wrote with a
certain florid grace that suited him well, and that impressed me at the
time very profoundly. It seemed to me that Captain Amber was not merely
one of the noblest of men--which indeed he was, as I was to learn often
and often afterwards--but also one of the wisest, and that his scheme of
colonisation was the scheme of a statesman and a philosopher.

How precisely the thing was to be done, and why Captain Marmaduke seemed
so confident of finding a new Garden of Eden or Earthly Paradise at the
other end of the world, I did not rightly comprehend then; nor, indeed,
have I striven much to comprehend since. But I gathered this much--that
Captain Marmaduke had retired from the service to carry out his fancy;
that he had bought land of the Dutch in the Indies; that he had plenty
of money at his command; and that the enterprise was all at his charges.
One thing was quite certain--Captain Marmaduke had got a ship, and a
good one too, now riding at anchor in Sendennis harbour; and in
Sendennis Captain Marmaduke only meant to stay long enough to get
together a few more folk to complete his company and his colony. I was
to come along, not as a colonist, unless I chose, but as a kind of
companion to Lancelot, to learn all the tricks of the sailor's trade,
and to return when Captain Marmaduke, having fairly established his
colony, set out on his return voyage.

For it seemed that if I had forgotten, or seemed to have forgotten,
Lancelot, he had not forgotten me, but had carried me in his thoughts
through all the months that had grown to years since last we met. Thus,
when Captain Amber first began to carry out his dream of a colony,
Lancelot begged him to give me a share in the adventure. For Lancelot
remembered well my hunger and thirst for travel, and had sw