ly held his pipe by the bowl and nodded a little, but
the hearts of all of them glowed.

After dinner they sat long on deck. Rollo, at his master's
invitation, joined them with a mandolin, which he had been
discovered to play considerably better than any one else on board.
Rollo sat bolt upright in a reclining chair to prove that he did not
forget his station and strummed softly, and acknowledged approval
with:

"Yes, sir. A little music adds an air to any occasion, _I_ always
think, sir."

The moon was not yet full, but its light in that warm world was
brilliant. The air was drowsy and scented with something that might
have been its own honey or that might have come from the strange
blooms, water-sealed below. Now and then St. George went aside for a
space and walked up and down the deck or sent below for Jarvo. Once,
as Jarvo left St. George's side, Little Cawthorne awoke and sat
upright and inquiring, in his hammock.

"What _is_ the matter with his feet?" he inquired peevishly. "I
shall certainly ask him directly."

"It's the seventh day out," Amory observed, "and still nobody
knows."

For Jarvo and Akko had another distinction besides their diminutive
stature and greyhound build. Their feet, clad in soft soleless
shoes, made of skins, were long and pointed and of almost uncanny
flexibility. It had become impossible for any one to look at either
of the little men without letting his eyes wander to their curiously
expressive feet, which, like "courtier speech," were expressive
without revealing anything.

"I t'ink," Bennietod gave out, "dat dey're lost Eyetalian
organ-grinder monkeys, wid huming intelligence, like Bertran's
Bimi."

"What a suspicious child it is," yawned Little Cawthorne, and went
to sleep again. Toward midnight he awoke, refreshed and happy, and
broke into instant song:

"The daylight may do for the gay,
The thoughtless, the heartless, the free,
But there's something about the moon's ray--"

he was chanting in perfect tonelessness, when St. George cried out.
The others sprang to their feet.

"Lights!" said St. George, and gave the glass to Amory, his hand
trembling, and very nearly snatched it back again.

Far to the southeast, faint as the lost Pleiad, a single golden
point pricked the haze, danced, glimmered, was lost, and reappeared
to their eager eyes. The impossibility of it all, the impossibility
of believing that they could have sighted the li