someter. A goods train half a mile away was noisily shunting trucks.

And yet the glamour was about her still; something indescribable but
quite palpable--something out of which she looked at you as from
another world.

He took her proffered hand, and she leapt out lightly. She was not in
the least dishevelled. It seemed as if the air must be her proper
element. She looked about her, interested, but not curious. Her first
thought was for the machine.

"Poor thing!" she said. "He must be tired."

That faint tremor of fear that had come to him when beneath the
menhir's shadow he had watched the opening of her eyes, returned to
him. It was not an unpleasant sensation. Rather it added a piquancy
to their relationship. But it was distinctly real. She watched the
feeding of the monster; and then he came again and stood beside her on
the yellow sands.

"England!" he explained with a wave of his hand. One fancies she had
the impression that it belonged to him. Graciously she repeated the
name. And somehow, as it fell from her lips, it conjured up to
Commander Raffleton a land of wonder and romance.

"I have heard of it," she added. "I think I shall like it."

He answered that he hoped she would. He was deadly serious about it.
He possessed, generally speaking, a sense of humour; but for the moment
this must have deserted him. He told her he was going to leave her in
the care of a wise and learned man called "Cousin Christopher"; his
description no doubt suggesting to Malvina a friendly magician. He
himself would have to go away for a little while, but would return.

It did not seem to matter to Malvina, these minor details. It was
evident--the idea in her mind--that he had been appointed to her.
Whether as master or servant it was less easy to conjecture: probably a
mixture of both, with preference towards the latter.

He mentioned again that he would not be away for longer than he could
help. There was no necessity for this repetition. She wasn't doubting
it.

Weymouth with its bathing machines and its gasometer faded away. King
Rufus was out a-hunting as they passed over the New Forest, and from
Salisbury Plain, as they looked down, the pixies waved their hands and
laughed. Later, they heard the clang of the anvil, telling them they
were in the neighbourhood of Wayland Smith's cave; and so planed down
sweetly and without a jar just beyond Cousin Christopher's orchard gate.

A shepherd's boy wa