he head of his dragoons, with a drawn bayonet in his
hand.

* * * * *

ORANGES AND LEMONS.

IV.--BEFORE LUNCH.

I found Myra in the hammock at the end of the loggia.

"Hallo," I said.

"Hallo." She looked up from her book and waved her hand. "Mentone on the
left, Monte Carlo on the right," she said, and returned to her book
again. Simpson had mentioned the situation so many times that it had
become a catch-phrase with us.

"Fancy reading on a lovely morning like this," I complained.

"But that's why. It's a very gloomy play by IBSEN, and whenever it's
simply more than I can bear I look up and see Mentone on the left, Monte
Carlo on the right--I mean, I see all the loveliness round me, and then
I know the world isn't so bad after all." She put her book down. "Are
you alone?"

I gripped her wrist suddenly and put the paper-knife to her throat.

"_We_ are alone," I hissed--or whatever you do to a sentence without any
"s's" in it to make it dramatic. "Your friends cannot save you now.
Prepare to--er--come a walk up the hill with me."

"Help! Help!" whispered Myra. She hesitated a moment; then swung herself
out of the hammock and went in for her hat.

We climbed up a steep path which led to the rock-village above us.
Simpson had told us that we must see the village; still more earnestly
he had begged us to see Corsica. The view of Corsica was to be obtained
from a point some miles up--too far to go before lunch.

"However, we can always say we saw it," I reassured Myra. "From this
distance you can't be certain of recognising an island you don't know.
Any small cloud on the horizon will do."

"I know it on the map."

"Yes, but it looks quite different in real life. The great thing is to
be able to assure Simpson at lunch that the Corsican question is now
closed. When we're a little higher up, I shall say, 'Surely that's
Corsica?' and you'll say, 'Not _Corsica_,?" as though you'd rather
expected the Isle of Wight; and then it'll be all over. Hallo!

We had just passed the narrow archway leading into the courtyard of the
village and were following the path up the hill. But in that moment of
passing we had been observed. Behind us a dozen village children now
trailed eagerly.

"Oh, the dears!" cried Myra.

"But I think we made a mistake to bring them," I said severely. "No one
is prouder of our--one, two, three ... I make it eleven--our eleven
children than I am, but there a