2

Even with the added power of her steam screw, it took the Thrush a week to make her way down the coast of Roman America as far as Tenby. For three days, while they were crossing the equator, the weather became outrageously hot, and, as Mr. Holystone had prophesied, cockroaches came on board in large numbers. They were a great nuisance, turning up in wholly unsuitable places: the crow's nest, the captain's bath, the compass, and the quartermaster's molasses jar.

Dido had a busy and aggravating week.

"Love a duck! Why did I ever let myself in for this lay?" she grumbled, when obliged by the exacting Mr. Holystone to walk up and down outside the wardroom door with a copy of the heavy King's Regulations balanced on her head, in order to acquire a more dignified and ladylike posture.

"Plenty of girls would give their eyeteeth to meet a queen," observed Mr. Holystone. He was sitting in his galley, so that he could keep an eye on her through the open door, while he stuffed half a dozen flying fish with a mixture of minced barnacles and powdered hardtack. "When I did my butler's training in London there was a young ladies' finishing school in the same building. All the girls talked about was the day when they would make their curtsy before His Majesty King James III."

"Finishing school?" growled Dido. "That's a right good name for it. It's liable to finish me, I can tell you."

"Now curtsy," said Mr. Holystone calmly. "Do not let the King's Regulations slip off your head. Point the right toe—swing the leg slowly to the side, then back—bend the left knee—hands move slowly backwards, spreading the fingers wide—"

The King's Regulations thudded to the floor, narrowly missing the feet of the first lieutenant, a fair-haired young man with a long, earnest face, who came by at that moment. He gave Dido a sympathetic grin, and went into the captain's cabin, where they heard him reporting:

"Thirteen volcanoes sighted ahead on the starb'd bow, sir."

"Thank you, Mr. Windward. You may give the order to slacken sail. We shall heave to, a safe distance out to sea from the port of Tenby, in case the state of hostility between New Cumbria and its neighbor should have worsened. I hope to receive further information and instructions from the British agent in Tenby."

"Ay, ay, sir." Lieutenant Windward saluted and returned on deck.

Dido replaced the King's Regulations on her head.

She pointed her right toe and announced, "How do you do, Your Majesty?" Then she shakily lowered herself on a bent left knee, continuing, "It was kind of you to invite me to your palace.... Oh, fish guts!" as the heavy book crashed to the floor once more.

"You had better come in here," said Mr. Holystone, "and practice taking tea. Thumb and three fingers together on the handle—small finger extended.... Good. Let me hear your tea table conversation."

"No sugar, thank you, Your Majesty. Merely a drop of cream. There; that is just as I like it. Pray, ma'am, from which Tradesman do you obtain your tay?"

"No, Dido, no! Not 'Pry, from which tridesman dew yew obtine yer tie?' 'From which place do you obtain your tay?'"

"From which plaice dew yew obteeyne yewer teeaye?"

Mr. Holystone threw up his eyes to heaven.

At this moment a sudden shudder through the ship indicated that the Thrush had hove to; they heard the creak of windlasses and the thud of feet on deck as the sails were lowered.

"Oh, please lemme go up on deck, Mr. Holy!" begged Dido. "I'll practice ever so hard tonight, cut my throat and swelp me, so I will!"

Mr. Holystone shrugged and let her go. To his mind, the chances of Dido's acquiring the manners of a polite young lady seemed about as probable as a mouse's nest in a cat's ear. Besides, he thought, how do we know what is considered polite behavior in Bath Regis?

Up on deck, Dido glanced eagerly about her.

The Cumbrian coast was visible as a line of black cliffs, about two miles to westward of the Thrush. Those cliffs must be tarnal high, Dido thought, to be so plain from here. But at one point they dropped to a V. And a pinnace, which had put out from the Thrush, was steering for this cleft.

Beyond the cliffs, and a good deal farther inland, Dido thought, a line of mountains could be seen—a cluster of peaks, very high and spiky, like the teeth of some great trap. Wonder if Bath Regis is up in them mountains? If so, it's going to be a scrabblish climb getting up there. Oh, scrape it! Dido sighed to herself; don't I just wish it was the Kentish flats, and that there port was Gravesend!

A considerable bustle was going on about the decks and rigging, as the sailors spread sails over the yards to act as awnings, bundled other sails tidily into canvas cases, coiled up the shrouds, and generally prepared the ship for a spell of inactivity. Dido, on the foredeck, had to duck and dodge several times, as men dashed past her or ropes whistled over her head.

All of a sudden she heard an angry yell and the outraged squall of a cat. Spinning round, she was just in time to see the sailor known as Silver Taffy grab hold of El Dorado, who had been perched on one of the main-deck eighteen-pounders, minding her own business. Twirling the cat by her long tail, Taffy tossed her over the side. Not, however, before Dora had avenged herself by slashing with all her claws at Taffy's face. She whirled through the air, turning over a dozen times, and would certainly have fallen prey to the sharks had she not struck the anchor cable. With despairing strength the poor animal managed to twine her long, sinuous tail several times round the cable, and so dangled there, swinging and wailing, as she scrabbled frenziedly to grasp the rope with her paws.

"Hang on, Dora—I'll get you!" shouted Dido, who was not far off. She flung herself over the rail and slid down the anchor cable. Grabbing El Dorado round the chest, she hugged the cat against her and began to work her way upward again—no easy matter, as the frantic Dora bit, struggled, squalled, squirmed, and did all in her power to hinder the rescue. Luckily, a couple of midshipmen had witnessed the incident and leaned over to take the cat from Dido; Dora was a general favorite with all the crew except Silver Taffy because of her prowess as a mouser.

"Thankee, Mr. Multiple," panted Dido, scrambling back over the rail. "Dang it, ain't she a Tartar, though! Reckon my face looks like Blackheath Pond after a week's skating!" and she wiped the blood from her eyes.

"It just about does, Miss Dido," said the red-haired Mr. Multiple with a grin. "You'd best take puss below and get Mr. Holystone to bathe those scritches. That was a right nimble job you did there, miss—anyone'd think you'd spent your life at sea."

"Well, I justabout have," said Dido. "Here, Dora, you'd best come along of me. Seems you ain't welcome on deck."

With a darkling glance at Silver Taffy she picked up El Dorado—who had resumed her usual calm and was haughtily putting her ruffled copper fur to rights—and carried the cat below.

"What in the world have you been at, child?" exclaimed Mr. Holystone. "Captain Hughes will hardly think you fit to attend the queen's court if he sees you like that. Here—" and he anointed Dido's countenance with a most evil-smelling paste of shark's liver and seaweed, ordering her to lie in her bunk for three hours, and meanwhile occupy the times usefully by reciting a litany that went:

We clean three tweed beads a week with Maltese seaweed;

Lady Jane Grey, pray do not stray to Mandalay on market day.

Dido found this very unfair. She flung herself crossly on her bunk.

"We clean three tweed beads a week ... Oh, butter my brogans, what rubbish!"

Luckily, before she had time to become too annoyed, Dido fell fast asleep; the cockroaches had been particularly troublesome the previous night, rustling around with a noise like toast crumbs being shaken inside a paper bag; they had kept her awake for hours.

When she next woke, evening had come; the air was cooler and the light was dim. Yawning, she rolled off her bunk—the weight that had settled on her chest proved to be El Dorado—and went up on deck with the cat for a breath of fresh air, keeping a wary eye out for Silver Taffy.

She found Mr. Holystone on the foredeck, scraping mussels, which he took from a wicker hamper and dropped, when clean, into a cauldron. Dido squatted down to help him, and he exclaimed with satisfaction on the healing work already accomplished by the shark paste.

"Miss Dido," he went on in a lower tone, "I cannot sufficiently express my obligation to you for saving my poor Dora from that ruffian. Young Multiple told me the whole while you were asleep. I had thought you must have been teasing Dora—I might have known I was wrong."

Dido kindly forgave his unjust suspicions. "Anyhows, if you thought I'd been pulling Dora's tail, Mr. Holy, it was right kind of you to doctor me. But why is that Silver Taffy so down on poor Dora?"

"When we were at Nombre de Dios a fortune-teller came along the dock, telling fortunes by dropping a spoonful of soot into people's hands. She told Taffy that the lines in his hand foretold that a cat would be the end of him. He is a very superstitious fellow," said Mr. Holystone, shrugging.

"No wonder he's so tarnal mean to Dora. I'm surprised you let her up on deck."

"Oh, she can usually look after herself. The El Dorado cats have a superior degree of intelligence."

"Are there others like her, then?"

"Indeed yes. Where I come from in Hy Brasil and in Lyonesse such cats are not uncommon."

"With such long tails?"

"Many longer still. They can swing on trees as nimbly as any ape. I have heard it said that there were such cats in the lost garden where our forefathers walked with the gods."

"Fancy!" said Dido. Looking thoughtfully at Mr. Holystone, she asked, after a moment, "Is it a nice place, that land of Hy Brasil? Where you come from?"

A cloud appeared to pass over the steward's brow. He began to say something, checked himself, and, after a moment, merely remarked, "Yes; it is a pleasant place." Then he stood up, easily lifting the heavy cauldron of cleaned mussels.

"Captain Hughes has invited the British agent to dinner. See, there is the pinnace, putting out to fetch him. Bring down the basket, Miss Dido, if you will be so kind."

Mr. Brandywinde, the British agent, proved, when he came on board, to be a blotchy-faced, wandering-eyed, seedy-looking individual. He wore a tricorne hat, snuffcolored suit, silver-buckled shoes; his sandy, thinning hair was dressed in a style long out of date, tied at the back with a small grosgrain bow. Dido, peering through the galley doorway as he passed, thought how untrustworthy he looked, and she guessed that Captain Hughes felt the same, for his voice, when he greeted Brandywinde, was noticeably quiet and dry.

"Claret, sir, or ship's grog—or would you care for a cup of tea?"

"Grog, sir—grog will do capitally, thankee, Captain," Mr. Brandywinde replied, in a tone that was both eager and creaking, like a rusty handle cranked at an uneven rate. "Grog, now, is excellent, if it is well mixed—on shore, I must tell you, we combine it with a little orock—cane spirit, you know! Then, if at the same time you smoke a pipe or two of abaca—hangman's weed, that is—why, you could believe yourself a veritable pasha. I believe even the White Queen herself—"

Then the captain's door was shut, and the two voices died to a murmur.

"Jemima!" said Dido. "What a havey-cavey cove. He looks as if he'd sell his own ma for cats' meat. Don't you think so, Mr. Holy?"

"Very likely his life is a lonely one," said Mr. Holystone guardedly. "The port of Tenby is a small place, cut off by a great forest from the interior, and the capital."

"What's the forest called?"

"Broceliande."

"So how do we get through? If we're going to Bath to see the queen?"

"By boat. Tenby lies at the mouth of a great river, the Severn. It is the captain's intention to hire a boat and travel by water."

Dido was rather disappointed. Having been at sea for most of the last eighteen months, she had hoped for a spell on land. But Mr. Holystone assured her that there would be plenty of that. Halfway along its course the Severn River was interrupted by a formidable series of cataracts dashing down from the Andes Mountains in the west of New Cumbria; these falls were not navigable, and so the party must take to land at that point.

The captain's bell rang, and Mr. Holystone went off to remove the bowls of mussel shells and replace them with fresh mutton and hearts of palm, brought out from shore in the pinnace. Dido, busy decorating a chocolate cake with babassu nuts, judged from the voices coming through the door that Mr. Brandywinde was becoming garrulous from drink and the unaccustomed company.

"You ask what the queen is like? The White Queen? My dear sir, she's rum. Rum as they come. How do you do, sir, what's your game? Rum, Rum, Rumplestiltskin is my name," he caroled. "The White Queen, they call her. Because of her hair, you know. Et cetera, et cetera. Sits at her embroidery all day long. Says she's waiting. Waiting for what? you ask. And may well ask! But as to that, mum's the word. Both rum and mum. Her Royal Mercy ain't confidential."

"If the queen is so unapproachable," persisted Captain Hughes, "does she have reliable ministers, advisers round her, to whom one may apply?"

"Oh, ay, there are some villainous-looking old scalawags with beards down to their shins—the vicar general, the grand inquisitor, the accuser, the advocate of the queen's tribunal—each more slippery than the next, if you ask me. Besides them there is the queen's jester—or soothsayer, if you prefer the term—"

"Soothsayer? What is he?" demanded the captain in a tone of disgust.

But before Dido could catch the answer, Mr. Holystone emerged with a trayload of plates, and the door was closed.

During the rest of dinner it remained shut, and no more of Mr. Brandywinde's disclosures could be heard. Dido—who had finished decorating the cake—was told to run up on deck and take the air. "For," said Mr. Holystone, "you have done more to help me than is fitting, though indeed I am very much obliged."

"Oh, pho!" retorted Dido. "You know your conversation's always an eddication, Mr. Holy. I'm a-learning all the time I'm a-helping you. Deportment and manners too!"

She put out her tongue at him teasingly and skipped out on deck with a small cake, which he had baked for her in a separate pan.

Dusk had fallen by now, and large southern stars were beginning to twinkle out in the deep blue above the Thrush, though the Cumbrian coast and the snow-covered western peaks were still outlined against a sky of pale phosphorescent green.

Earlier that evening Dido had, without asking permission, removed from the captain's cabin an exceedingly powerful telescope, which was one of his most valued possessions, for when carefully focused it had the power to render clearly visible objects which might be fifty or even a hundred miles off.

"He ain't about to use it while he's a-giving dinner and doing the civil to old Brandyblossom," calculated Dido, "so there's no harm in my borrowing it for a couple of hours."

When she had eaten her cake, she drew the glass from its case and, with its help, studied various features of the twilit shore. She could see the small town of Tenby clearly enough—its wharves, quays, the shipping at anchor in the river mouth, the tall black-and-white houses with feathery palms above them on the hillside. Then there came a belt of dense green, presumably the forest of Broceliande, full of pythons, pumas, alligators, and aurocs. Beyond that again, much farther off, hardly visible to the naked eye but clear enough through the powerful glass, lay a line of silvery foothills, below the higher peaks. Dido stared at these hills, trying to discover the point at which the Severn River tumbled over them in its majestic series of cataracts. She thought she had found the right spot—a white zigzag line against the gray of the hills—when she chanced on an even more interesting sight—what looked like a long procession of camels moving very slowly southward across the lens of the telescope.

Were they camels? If not camels, then what else could they be? They were shaggy, long-haired beasts, long necked too, with heads like those of sheep. Each bore on its back a large bulging pack. Each was led by a drover, and the procession crept at a snail's pace, as if the loads were a tremendous weight. As they toiled along, they were outlined clearly, some against the green sunset sky, some against the rose-flushed snow-clad peaks.

"Blow me," muttered Dido. "Ain't there a right lot of them, jist?"

She began to count, but counting was not Dido's strong point, and she gave up after four sets of twenty.

"Reckon they must use camels in New Cumbria where we'd use carriers' carts," she decided. "Maybe they finds it best to shift goods at night when the aurocs has gone to roost. Them aurocs must be a plaguy nuisance, if they can scrag a sheep or a cow like Dora nobbles a mouse."

The last of the line of loaded camels disappeared into a dark cleft among the hills. It was now becoming really dark. Following Mr. Holystone's instructions for doing so, Dido found the Southern Cross; then she heard the pinnace being whistled for, so she tucked the telescope under her duffel jacket and went below. As she descended the companionway, Mr. Brandywinde and the captain came out of the dining room.

"Perhaps by tomorrow," the captain was saying, "you will have received more information as to this—this loss that Her Majesty has sustained."

"Oh, what she has lost she refuses to say," caroled Mr. Brandywinde. "It seems to have vanished like last Wednesday!"

"Let us hope not!" retorted Captain Hughes acidly, "or my mission is but a sleeveless errand."

"A fool's errand—what a shocking thought! A fool in the forest of Bro-cel-iande, one foot on the water and one on the land."

At this moment Mr. Brandywinde laid eyes on Dido, who was politely waiting in the galley doorway for the two men to pass by. The agent's bloodshot eyes bulged until it looked as if they would burst from their sockets like horse chestnuts—he gulped, gasped, and fell into such a fit of coughing and choking that, if he had been on deck, it seemed highly probable that he would have fallen overboard as he staggered about.

"Deuce take the fellow!" exclaimed Captain Hughes impatiently. "Here—Holystone—thwack him on the back! Give him some hartshorn or spirits of tar—otherwise the man will take an apoplexy!"

Restoratives having been administered, Mr. Brandywinde was presently able to mop his streaming eyes and apologize.

"It is nothing—nothing—a trifling infirmity," he panted, still staggering. "Takes me thus at times—but it is nothing at all, I assure you! A slight disability resulting from the quantity of pepper in the diet hereabouts—nothing, sir, nothing, nothing! You must try the pepper-pot stew, Captain—I do urge you to try the pepper pot."

"Yes, yes, very well," replied Captain Hughes, not at all interested in pepper-pot stew. "Now, I shall be obliged, Mr. Brandywinde, if you can arrange for beds in Tenby for my party tomorrow night—since we must board the riverboat so early. Unless you can accommodate me and my men in your residence?"

"Quite out of the question," said the agent hastily. "Only two bedrooms—one for me and m'dear wife, one for our little angel. No, no, sir; rooms shall be bespoken for you at— hie—The White Hart. Fair tap there, but don't trust the gin. But, Captain, you never informed me, you never gave me to understand that you had a young female person—a child—among your crew. I was not apprised of this!"

"Why in the world should you be?" snapped the captain. "It is of very little import! And she is not a member of my crew—good heavens, I should hope not, indeed!—merely a—a supercargo, a kind of passenger whom I am escorting back to England. And I intend taking her to wait on Queen Ginevra; but she will require more suitable apparel." The captain glanced with disfavor at Dido's jacket and trousers. "Is there," he asked Mr. Brandywinde, "a dressmaker in Tenby—or—or a milliner, haberdasher, needlewoman, who could supply miss there with an outfit to wear at court?"

If Mr. Brandywinde could have become more flabbergasted, this announcement, it seemed, must have rendered him so. He gaped at Captain Hughes, feebly flapped his hands up and down, opened and shut his mouth several times, before at length replying, "You intend taking miss to visit the queen? Indeed! And you require some apparel—?"

"Petticoats! A gown! A sash! What about your good lady—Mrs. Brandywinde—perhaps she might know the name of some sempstress?"

"Oh ... ah ... really I am not ... that is to say she does not ... or at least—"

"Perhaps I and young miss could wait on your good lady at your house, sir," cut in the captain, as the agent's replies did not seem to be tending in any useful direction. "We will bestow our luggage at the inn, tomorrow, leave my first lieutenant to make arrangements for our trip upriver, and then call at your house—if," he added with some irony, "if this will suit your convenience, Mr. Brandywinde?"

Mr. Brandywinde almost threw himself into another paroxysm in his efforts to assure the captain as to his zeal to be of use. There would not be the least difficulty in the world about finding some suitable person—"suitable, ha, ha, for she will supply the young lady with a suit," he concluded, with a burst of almost hysterical merriment. "And I wish you good night, dear friend—dear friend; would that such evenings might never, never end!"

So saying, he bounded over the rail with such agility that, had there not been a coxswain waiting to receive him in the boat, his evening would most probably have ended in the jaws of a shark.

Captain Hughes went forward to the quarterdeck. From the irritable haste of his steps as he paced to and fro, the state of his mind could be guessed at.

Dido availed herself of this chance to restore the telescope to its place on the captain's desk.

Next morning Dido was up soon after dawn, roused by the fresh scent of trees and grass from the land, and the shrill cries of seagulls, which sounded like a great many tin spoons being scraped on a large number of china plates.

Hastily she tumbled her small handful of belongings together and stuffed them into a canvas bag. This done, she went hopefully on deck and stared at the land; she could not borrow the captain's spyglass now, for he was in his cabin writing a report.

"What time does we get to go on shore?" she asked Mr. Holystone when she went below for her breakfast.

He had his absentminded expression; he looked as if his mind were a hundred miles off, almost out of reach. But at Dido's question he sighed, pulling his mind back into place, and handed her a mug of hot coffee with molasses in it.

"When the captain has decided which men to take and who shall be left in charge of the ship."

Soon after breakfast the captain sent for Dido.

"Mr. Holystone informs me that you have made fair progress in your deportment, and that your politeness is greatly improved, Miss Twite."

"Old Holy is a regular brick, ain't he? He never gets miffed or skiffly, even when I gives him a bit o' lip." Dido then recalled herself and added, "Ay, ay, sir."

"Let me see your obeisance."

"Eh?"

"Curtsy, child!"

Dido looked round for a copy of the King's Regulations, but the first lieutenant had borrowed it. Without this handicap, she managed quite a creditable curtsy.

The captain, however, remained dissatisfied.

"You certainly cannot appear before the queen in that rigout. We had best go on shore directly and set about finding a sempstress. Send Holystone to me, and tell him to have Mr. Windward summoned."

Dido ran out joyfully.

"You're to go to the cap, and we're all to start for land so's I can get some gals' togs in Tenby," she called to the steward, grabbing her bag of needments, and she bounded up on deck.

Mr. Windward was supervising the stowage of provisions in the pinnace, and the embarkation of the shoregoing party. To Dido, leaning on the rail and watching, it came as a most disagreeable shock to discover that Silver Taffy was to be one of the shore crew. The others were a big cheerful lad called Able Seaman Noah Gusset; a sailor known as Plum because of the color of his nose; Mr. Midshipman Multiple, who was freckled, blue-eyed, quick-witted, and, if of a somewhat teasing disposition, on the whole friendly to Dido; and the first lieutenant. The second lieutenant, Mr. Bowsprit, was to remain in charge of the Thrush.

"Oh, croopus," Dido muttered, when she saw Silver Taffy climb into the pinnace. "If he's along, there'll be nothing but trouble!"

Assembling all her resolution, she ran down the companionway and tapped on the captain's door.

"Come in!" he called impatiently.

Dido slipped in and carefully closed the door behind her.

"Sir," she said rapidly in a low tone, "please don't have Silver Taffy along in the lot that's going ashore! There's bound to be no end of shenanigans if you do—it'll bring a whole peck o' trouble—acos he can't abide Mr. Holystone's cat—or me—and if we're all a-going to be traveling in a boat up the river, it'll be hokus-mokus all the blessed time, don't you see?"

In her urgency she grasped hold of the captain's blue superfine broadcloth lapels, tarnishing the gold lace. Captain Hughes stepped back sharply, regarding her with amazed disapprobation.

"Miss Twite!! Pray, who do you think you are? Remember that I am the captain!"

"Lud love you, sir, that's jist what I does remember! Jeeminy, you're the one as has got us into this mux, and you're the only one as can get us out. Do tell Silver Taffy as he ain't wanted arter all!"

"I shall do no such thing," said Captain Hughes. "David Llewellyn is a strong, useful seaman—one of the strongest men on board—which is one of the reasons why I chose him. He will be a capital member of the party should we chance to encounter wild beasts or hostile savages. Furthermore, he is familiar with this country—another advantage. He has an old aunt residing in Bewdley and he particularly requested permission to form one of the party so that he might visit her. But I do not know why I should be required to explain my reasons to you, Miss Twite, after all! How dare you enter my cabin uninvited, and speak to me with this—this unheard-of effrontery? Return on deck at once, if you please!"

"Oh, blimey!" said Dido despairingly.

Entering Mr. Holystone's galley, she found him putting up a hamper of the captain's favorite delicacies, and a set of plate, glass, knife, fork, spoon, and linen napkin.

"You'll never guess what, Mr. Holy," said Dido in deep dejection. "That there perishing Silver Taffy is a-coming ashore with us. I tried to persuade Cap'n Hughes agin it, but he's so sot in his judgments there's no talking to him."

Mr. Holystone did not appear too discomposed. He replied calmly enough, "Indeed? It was very forward of you, child, to argue with the captain."

"Yes, that's what he said," Dido replied glumly, kicking at a basket of damp seaweed in which Mr. Holystone was packing hard-boiled gulls' eggs.

"But how'll you keep an eye on Dora, with Silver Taffy along?"

"I can leave her here on board, which will be a great advantage. Mr. Bowsprit will look after her, I am sure."

"Ay, that's so," said Dido, sighing. "But it's spoiled my pleasure, I can tell you."

"Fiddle-de-dee! Now, take this pail on deck, if you will be so kind, and hand it to Able Seaman Gusset."

Once aboard the pinnace, Dido found her spirits lifting. It was such a fine day, after all! The eight oars raised in salute, the captain descended the ladder; then, when he was seated, all the rowers cleft the sea together and shot the boat forward. The hot sun blazed overhead, the sea underneath was brilliantly blue and clear. In it, however, huge dark shapes roved about, sometimes looming uncomfortably close to the pinnace. One of them rose out of the water and snapped at the oars, revealing a ferocious triple row of teeth.

"Tiburone, he is," Able Seaman Gusset told Dido—he had a slow, country voice, and a pleasant blue-eyed open face. "Best not trail your hand in the water, missie. You might bring it up less a few fingers!"

"I don't reckon as a few fingers'd be much use to him," said Dido with a shudder; and after that she took good care to keep her hands well inside the boat.

The land, which from a distance had looked like a frieze cut from blue and silver silk, acquired clearness and detail as they moved closer. Dido saw that the black-and-white timbered houses of Tenby each had an upstairs gallery, overhanging the street, glassed in with big windows, doubtless for protection from Atlantic gales.

On the quayside lay piles of fish, stacks of crates and barrels, and mounds of gaily colored nets. The houses of this small port were grouped on either side of the river, which flowed deep and swift between two headlands. About a quarter of a mile upriver, an island, built over with houses, divided the Severn, and bridges spanned each arm of water.

"It looks a right nice little place," Dido said to Noah Gusset, "but it's mighty quiet, ennit? There bain't many folk about. You'd think they'd be keen to see chaps from a British man-o'-war?"

"Maybe 'tis work hours," suggested Noah.

The streets of Tenby did seem peculiarly empty. Dido looked with interest to see if the cobbles were made of silver—but they were merely the usual sort, smeared over with fish offal. And the houses looked remarkably like those of Southwark or Battersea. Dido could not avoid a slight feeling of disappointment as she climbed up the steps and onto the quay. She had hoped for something more foreign and surprising.

Captain Hughes was the one who seemed surprised—and not agreeably. Apparently he had expected Mr. Brandywinde to be there to meet them; but there was no sign of the British agent on the harborside.

"Plague take the fellow," Dido heard the captain mutter. "I only hope he is not touched in his wits. He seemed half dickey in his cups. It is a fine thing to set out on such a difficult and delicate mission with no better counsel than the word of such a dibble-dabble fellow."

"You think he's a rabshackle, Cap'n?" said Dido. "So do I."

Captain Hughes cast her an impatient glance.

"Mind your own business, child! Speak when you are spoken to, not before!"

Thus snubbed, Dido applied herself to studying the streets of Tenby. A tall, skinny fellow now approached them, who, briefly bowing, without any particular look of civility or goodwill, announced himself as Sandai Bando and said that he had been directed to lead them to the inn.

"Where is Mr. Brandywinde?" demanded Captain Hughes.

Sandai Bando shrugged, shook his head, and spread out his hands; then, turning his back, he led them off along the harborside at a rapid pace. He was bronzed, hook-nosed, had on a suit of black worsted, much the worse for wear, yellow stockings, black slippers, and very short trousers. His black hair was tied back in a queue.

The distance to The White Hart Inn, where they were to leave their bags, was not great; quitting the harbor, they turned up a steep hill and soon saw the inn sign ahead of them. On this street there were a few people about: the men, in general, rather short, dark, stern-looking, clad like Sandai Bando in suits of black worsted, the women equally small of stature, wearing black stuff dresses, white aprons, and steeple-crowned hats over white caps. These people glanced at the party of foreigners with what seemed like distrust and ill will; they did not smile at the strangers, or make any attempt to engage them in talk.

"What a set of dismal churlish bumpkins," Dido muttered to Mr. Holystone. "They stare at us as if we was rattlesnakes. Not very civil, are they?"

Several of the people they passed stared at Dido, in particular, with apparent astonishment. What's so odd about me? she wondered. Is it because I've got on boys' togs? Ain't gals allowed on the streets here?

Certainly no girls were to be seen, and very few boys.

In the windows of some of the houses they passed, placards were to be seen, often carrying a picture of a person. "Puella perdida" or "Niña perdida," "Infans absens," were the messages printed under these pictures; about to ask Mr. Holystone what this meant, Dido saw one that had the inscription in English: Lost child.

"Rabbit me," she muttered in perplexity. "Has everybody in this town lost a child? They must be a rare careless lot. No wonder they're all so down-in-the-mouth."

Now the ship's party passed a few little stores, chandlers' shops displaying flour, candles, twine, eggs, soap; and some poverty-stricken market stalls with bright yellow potatoes (Mr. Holystone told Dido these were yams), yucca roots, cassava bread, onions, and green pineapples.

The White Hart was a decent-looking establishment with an arch for coaches to pass under, and flowering cactuses in stone pots on either side of its main door. No coaches were to be seen in the yard behind, however, and the inn appeared to be doing very slow business, to judge from the alacrity with which the captain and his party were received by Don José Jones, the innkeeper. He was a small bustling red-faced man, who promptly escorted the captain to his best suite, and promised to have dinner for the party at five o'clock sharp.

A sour-faced chambermaid led Dido to a small chamber next to that of the captain, but she had time to do no more than drop her duffel bag on the bed before Captain Hughes summoned her to accompany him to Mr. Brandywinde's house.

"Did you expect to find Mr. Brandywinde a-waiting here, sir?" asked Dido, observing that the captain looked rather put out.

"Never mind that, miss!" snapped Captain Hughes. He added under his breath, "I daresay if we were to wait for that bag of wind to do anything useful, we might wait until the forty-second Tuesday in Trinity Week."

It's too bad the captain's such an old gruff-and-grum, thought Dido, for there's nought amiss with his sense.

Captain Hughes had instructed Sandai Bando to lead them to the agent's residence, but it was plain he did this with no good grace; scowling, with his lower lip thrust out, he took them round such a number of corners that Dido began to be positive he was leading them a long way round on purpose.

At last the captain exclaimed, "Come, come, my man! Do not try to pull the wool over our eyes, if you please! We have been past that market stall once already. I distinctly remember those wizened little cassava loaves. I shall not pay you one bezant more, I warn you, however far you take us!"

And he hailed a passer-by, a respectable-looking man in black broadcloth who carried what looked like a Bible under his arm, and inquired the way to the British agent's residence.

"Well, it is not far from here, but you are going in exactly the wrong direction," replied this man. "You should climb the hill to the monument, turn right, and it is the first house along the new road. You cannot mistake, for there is a monkey-puzzle tree in front, white palings all round, a cactus by the steps, and the name Mon Repos on the gate."

As Captain Hughes thanked the stranger, Sandai Bando fairly took to his heels and scudded off up the hill as if the devil were after him. Since the monument was plainly visible at the top, Captain Hughes did not call him back; all their breath was needed for climbing.

The hill was excessively steep, and the little thatched houses continued up it, each one three steps higher than its neighbor, until just before the monument, where there was a patch of rough, open, thistly grass, on which a few donkeys grazed. There were also two tall, shaggy beasts, breathing in a rather supercilious manner over the dusty herbage, unable to move away because their front and back feet were hobbled.

"Oh!" exclaimed Dido. "They are the same as—" "—As the animals I saw last night," she had been about to say, but then recalled that this would reveal her unauthorized use of the captain's spyglass, and quickly shut her mouth. The captain briefly informed her that they were llamas, large sheeplike animals much esteemed in these parts both for their wool and as beasts of burden. "A llama will not travel alone, but only in company with his fellows; and it will never carry a load of more than one hundred pounds avoirdupois."

"How do they know?" Dido asked, but the captain did not answer.

The monument, when they reached it, also excited Dido's curiosity; it consisted of a sword stuck in a large granite rock, on top of a high plinth. On the plinth were engraved the words: Vide ut supra.

"What's that mean, Cap?" panted Dido, glad of the chance to stand still for a moment. After so long a spell at sea, her legs were not prepared for such a steep climb.

"It means 'See what is written above,'" briefly replied the captain.

"Well, what is written above?"

"Blest if I can see anything. Oh—there—on the handle of the sword, I suppose."

Dido instantly scrambled up onto the rock and reported that the words on the sword handle read, "Non in aeternum moriar." "What's that mean, sir?"

"It means 'I shall not die forever.' Do, pray, for heaven's sake, child, come down off that rock directly! What will people think?" irascibly demanded the captain.

Dido jumped nimbly down, informing the captain that there was a crown carved on the other side of the rock, and a tiptop view to be had from its summit. "You can see the old Thrush, sir, her own self. And there's a ship putting into port; one o' them Biruvian trading scows."

Captain Hughes merely urged Dido to make haste and not dusty her breeches any more; so they walked on to the white gates of the house called Mon Repos. Beyond the house, the earth road came to an abrupt stop, barred by a pair of locked gates set in a high palisade fence made of thick, strong palm trunks; it seemed that the town of Tenby was carefully fortified. Beyond the palisade, the tops of forest trees could be seen.

"Heyday, what have we here?" exclaimed Captain Hughes. A large cart, already half-loaded, stood in front of Mon Repos. Furniture was being carried out to it. "This looks like a move. Are they leaving?"

So it appeared. Servants were running to and fro, bearing trunks, portmanteaux, bandboxes, and all manner of bundles, besides toys, blankets, and cooking utensils; in the midst of all this bustle was Mr. Brandywinde himself, directing the stowage in the cart.

At the sight of Captain Hughes the agent halted his activities, evidently somewhat embarrassed and discomposed.

"Ah, there you are, my dear Captain! What a charming surprise. 'Oh, what a surprise, doth gladden my eyes, What a vision of joy your admirer descries!'"

"Are you moving house, then, Brandywinde?" demanded the captain, interrupting these transports.

"Why—why yes; yes, that is so; in the joy of welcoming you, Captain, it had slipped my memory, but such indeed is the case."

"By hokey! Why the deuce didn't you tell me so? It is fortunate that I reached Tenby yesterday, and not next week," indignantly answered the captain. "Or are you merely removing to another quarter of the town?"

"Ahem! Well—in fact—that is to say—"

Mr. Brandywinde's answer was cut short by the emergence of a slatternly-looking woman clad in a tattered satin wrapper, which had a great many frills, and dangled about her in a highly insecure manner, as if it might slip off altogether at any moment.

"Order them to make haste, my ducky diddlums, or we shall miss the packet!" exclaimed this personage, and then, observing Captain Hughes, she changed her expression to a simper and added, "Oh, la, I declare! Well, for shame, Ludovic! You never told me that you were expecting company!"

"Did I not, my angel? It must have slipped from my mind in the press of business. Allow me, my love—my dear old messmate, Captain Hughes of His Majesty's sloop Thrush. And this is little Miss Pittikin-Pattikin," Brandywinde added vaguely. "I told you that the captain wished to consult your views, my honeycake, as to where the young lady could best obtain suitable raiment in which to make her curtsy before Her Mercy."

As he pronounced the latter words, Dido noticed that both he, his wife, and all the servants looked nervously about, as if fearful that he might be overheard. And several of the servants made figure-eight signs with thumb and fingers.

"Of course you told me about the matter, my lovekin," shrilly replied Mrs. Brandywinde. "And I writ a note about it, not this half hour since. Do you return to The White Hart, Captain, directly, and before you can say 'Pop goes the weasel,' my dear sir, I can assure you, two of the best needlewomen in New Cumbria will be in attendance on you—Mind that chiffonier, blockhead! You nearly had the legs off it!" And she aimed a thump with her palm-leaf fan at the head of a passing servant. This had the effect of dislodging her wrapper, and she turned to retreat indoors, hoisting it together with a hurried hand.

"Are you quite certain of that, ma'am?" Captain Hughes called after her doubtfully. He sounded as if, judging from her own untidy apparel, he wondered whether she was the best person to recommend a dressmaker.

"Sure as sharks is sharks," replied Mrs. Brandywinde, stopping in the doorway to give the captain such an extremely wide smile that she was able to display every one of her thirty-two teeth, all made of well-polished silver. "Why, I may tell you that both sempstresses have been in the employ of Lady Ett—of Her Mercy's own mistress of the wardrobe." Dido noticed the agent give his wife a scowl at these words.

The captain said, "Oh, well—in that case—I am much obliged to you, ma'am. And I shall not discommode you further at this time. Are you being replaced, sir, by another agent, may I inquire?" he added to Mr. Brandywinde.

Dido missed the agent's answer, if there was one, for at this moment there sidled out of Mon Repos the most unattractive small child she thought she had ever laid eyes on.

Young Miss Brandywinde had the protruding eyes and lank sandy hair of her father, added to the bulging girth and sly expression of her mother; her face was covered in spots, and she was stickily sucking a length of sugarcane which had dribbled down the front of her frilly red sarcenet dress. She might be about five years old.

"Oh, my eye! Who's this?" she demanded, removing the sugarcane from her mouth just long enough to put the question, then popping it back in again. She gestured at Dido with her elbow.

"Why—why—why, it is Cap'n Hughes's little friend—that's who it is!" indulgently but somewhat nervously replied her father.

"I reckon you come from Greenland?" The child fixed her mud-colored eyes on Dido.

"Greenland? No, why'd you think that? I comes from London."

"What you doin' here, then?"

"What do you suppose? She is visiting New Cumbria, my pipkin." And, smiling in a somewhat sickly way at the captain, Mr. Brandywinde explained, "This is our little angel, sir! It is for her benefit, indeed, that we are removing from Tenby. The air hereabouts is—is—is insalubrious for young females between the age of five and fifteen. Decidedly insalubrious. They—"

"Ludovic!" shrilled his wife. "If those papers are not placed in the hamper directly they will be left behind. And if we are not out of the house in ten minutes, we shall miss the packet!"

"Yes—yes, my angel—I am coming, I am coming!"

"Well, I reckon you must be from Greenland," persisted Miss Brandywinde to Dido. "Acos otherwise you'd never be sich a peevy clodpole as to come here. Why, it's bezants to breadcrumbs as you'll never—"

"Quiet, you little dev—angel!" exploded her father, and with something less than fondness Mr. Brandywinde picked up his daughter and plunked her into the cart, jamming her so tightly between a copper cauldron and a bundle of butter pats that she let out an indignant squawk.

"What d'yer do that for, Pa? It's bezants to breadcrumbs as the aurocs'll—"

But Mrs. Brandywinde, coming out at that moment in a bright pink India muslin which she must have donned at great speed, deposited a large roll of cotton quilts right on top of her child, which had the effect of silencing the little angel, as a canary is silenced by having a wrapper put over its cage.

The driver cracked his whip, and the loaded cart started off at a gallop. The agent and his wife had meanwhile jumped into a light chariot which had come up behind. Just before this rolled off, Dido thought she heard Mrs. Brandywinde inquire of her husband, "Did you collect the dibs from Mrs. M?" and his reply, "What do you think I paid the passage with, my honey tart? I am not made of coleslaw, I assure you!"

Then the chariot clattered off downhill toward the harbor in a cloud of dust.

"Well!" muttered the captain in a tone of gloomy satisfaction. "I am never wrong in my judgments. The moment I laid eyes on Brandywinde I knew him to be a dem'd unsatisfactory, dilly-dallying, fossicking, freakish sort of fellow."

"I could have told you that, anytime these last twenty-four hours," said Dido.

"Will you be quiet, child, and not speak unless you are required to?" Captain Hughes added crossly, "We had best make all speed back to The White Hart, in case that slattern was telling the truth."

He started off at a round pace, and Dido was obliged to trot in order to keep up with him.