Then some of the children, when they heard all this, drew secretly
away, and ran round the point, and gave up the boats and the sea, and
began their old idle play again. And some of them, I thought, hid the
shells and the berries they had got, and then jumped into the boat,
pretending they had left all behind them.

Then I saw that the man gave different presents to each of them, as they
seated themselves in the boat. One was a little compass in a wooden box.
"This," he said, "will always shew you which way to steer; you are to
follow me, for I shall always be before you on the waters; but often when
the darkness of the night comes on, or the thick mist seethes up from the
wave's brim, or the calm has fallen upon you so that your boat has stood
still,--often at such times as these you may not be able even to mark my
track before you: then you must look at the compass, and its finger will
always point true and straight to where I am; and if you will follow me
there, you will be safe." He gave them, too, a musical instrument, which
made a soft murmuring sound when they breathed earnestly into it; "and
this," he said, "you must use when you are becalmed and so cannot get on,
or when the waves swell into a storm around you and threaten to swallow
you up." He gave them, too, bread and water for many days.

So I saw that they all set out upon their voyage, and a beautiful sight
it was to look upon. Their snow-white sails upon the deep sea shone like
stars upon the blue of the firmament; and now they all followed close
upon the leader's ship, and their little boats danced lightly and
joyfully over the trackless waves, which lifted up their breasts to waft
them over: and so they started. But I looked again in a little while,
and they were beginning to be scattered very widely asunder: here and
there three or four of the boats kept well together, and followed
steadily in the track of the leader's vessel; then there was a long space
of the sea with no boat upon it at all; then came a straggler or two, and
then another company; and then, far off on the right and on the left,
were other boats, which seemed to be wandering quite away from the
leader's path.

Now, as I watched them closer, I saw that there were many different
things which drew them away: one I saw, soon after they started, who
turned back to look at the rocky island, forgetting the man's command. He
saw the other children playing on the beach; he heard thei