, friend
Ulysses?"

"I think it more than likely that she might be followed," I answered,
"and I quite agree with Miss Calypso. I certainly wouldn't advise her to
visit her treasure just now--with the woods probably full of eyes. In
fact," I added, smiling frankly at her, "I could scarcely answer for
myself even--for I confess that she has filled me with an overpowering
curiosity."

And in my heart I stood once more amid the watery gleams and echoes of
that moonlit cavern, struck dumb before that shining princess from
whose mouth and hands had fallen those strange streams of gold.

"So be it then," said the "King"; "and now to consider what our friend
here graphically speaks of as those eyes in the woods. 'The woods were
full of eyes.' Ah! friend Ulysses, you evidently share my taste for the
romantic phrase. Who cares how often it has been used? It is all the
better for that. Like old wine, it has gained with age. One's whole
boyhood seems to be in a phrase like that--Dumas, Scott, Fenimore
Cooper. How often, I wonder, has that divine phrase been written--'the
woods were full of eyes.' And now to think that we are actually living
it--an old boy like myself even. 'The woods were full of eyes.' Bravo!
Ulysses, for it is still a brave and gallant world!"

The "King" then made a determined descent into the practical. The woods,
most probably, _were_ full of eyes. In plain prose, we were almost
certainly being watched. Unless--unless, indeed, my bogus departure for
Nassau had fooled Tobias as we had hoped. But, even so, with that lure
of Calypso's doubloon ever before him, it was too probable that he would
not leave the neighbourhood without some further investigation--"an
investigation," the "King" explained, "which might well take the form
of a midnight raid; murdered in our beds, and so forth."

That being so, being in fact almost a certainty--the "King" spoke as
though he would be a much disappointed man otherwise--we must look to
our garrison. After all, besides ourselves, we had but Samson and
Erebus, and their dark brethren of doubtful courage, while Tobias
probably had command of a round dozen of doughty desperadoes. On the
whole, perhaps, he said, it might be best to avail ourselves of the crew
of the _Flamingo_--"under cover of the dark," he repeated with a smile.

Yes! that must be the first step. We must get them up there that night,
under cover of the dark; keep them well hidden, and--well! await
developm