card-playing,
just for something to say, he told me with that queer smile of his that
he had read a story of some people condemned to death who passed the
time before execution playing card games with their guards."

"And what did you say?"

"I told him that there were probably cards on board somewhere--Jorgenson
would know. Then I asked him whether he looked on me as a gaoler. He was
quite startled and sorry for what he said."

"It wasn't very kind of you, Captain Lingard."

"It slipped out awkwardly and we made it up with a laugh."

Mrs. Travers leaned her elbows on the rail and put her head into her
hands. Every attitude of that woman surprised Lingard by its enchanting
effect upon himself. He sighed, and the silence lasted for a long while.

"I wish I had understood every word that was said that morning."

"That morning," repeated Lingard. "What morning do you mean?"

"I mean the morning when I walked out of Belarab's stockade on your arm,
Captain Lingard, at the head of the procession. It seemed to me that I
was walking on a splendid stage in a scene from an opera, in a gorgeous
show fit to make an audience hold its breath. You can't possibly guess
how unreal all this seemed, and how artificial I felt myself. An opera,
you know. . . ."

"I know. I was a gold digger at one time. Some of us used to come down
to Melbourne with our pockets full of money. I daresay it was poor
enough to what you must have seen, but once I went to a show like that.
It was a story acted to music. All the people went singing through it
right to the very end."

"How it must have jarred on your sense of reality," said Mrs. Travers,
still not looking at him. "You don't remember the name of the opera?"

"No. I never troubled my head about it. We--our lot never did."

"I won't ask you what the story was like. It must have appeared to
you like the very defiance of all truth. Would real people go singing
through their life anywhere except in a fairy tale?"

"These people didn't always sing for joy," said Lingard, simply. "I
don't know much about fairy tales."

"They are mostly about princesses," murmured Mrs. Travers.

Lingard didn't quite hear. He bent his ear for a moment but she wasn't
looking at him and he didn't ask her to repeat her remark. "Fairy tales
are for children, I believe," he said. "But that story with music I am
telling you of, Mrs. Travers, was not a tale for children. I assure you
that of the few shows I have