t I
went to look for the brother whom you said I might find by the sea if
I searched hard enough, and I found him, though I do not understand his
words or he mine. Come, brother, let me help you up, for this is our
home, and here are our father and mother."

Then, filled with wonder, we carried the children into the house, and
took their wet clothes off them. It was I who undressed the boy, and
noted that though his garments were in rags and foul, yet they were of a
finer stuff than any that I had seen, and that his linen, which was soft
as silk, was marked with the letters R. M. Also I noted other things:
namely, that so swollen were his little feet that the boots must be cut
off them, and that he was well-nigh dead of starvation, for his bones
almost pierced his milk-white skin.

Well, we cleaned him, and having wrapped him in blankets and soft-tanned
hides, I fed him with broth a spoonful at a time, for had I let him
eat all he would, he was so famished that I feared lest he should kill
himself. After he was somewhat satisfied, sad memories seemed to come
back to him, for he cried and spoke in England, repeating the word
"Mother," which I knew, again and again, till presently he dropped
off to sleep, and for many hours slept without waking. Then, little by
little, I drew all the tale from Suzanne.

It would seem that the child, who was very venturesome and full of
imaginings, had dreamed a dream in her bed on the night of the day when
she played with the gun and Jan and I had spoken together of the sea.
She dreamed that in a certain kloof, an hour's ride and more away from
the stead, she heard the voice of a child praying, and that although he
prayed in a tongue unknown to her, she understood the words, which
were: "O Father, my mother is dead, send some one to help me, for I am
starving." Moreover, looking round her in her dream, though she could
not see the child from whom the voice came, yet she knew the kloof, for
as it chanced she had been there twice, once with me to gather white
lilies for the burial of a neighbour who had died, and once with her
father, who was searching for a lost ox. Now Suzanne, having lived so
much with her elders, was very quick, and she was sure when she woke in
the morning that if she said anything about her dream we should laugh at
her and should not allow her to go to the place of which she had dreamt.
Therefore it was that she made the plan of seeking for the shells upon
the seas