emember, but, as I think, a matter of four weeks or more. For the
Captain had some old friends amongst the Dutch colony, and there were
certain matters of revictualling the ship to be thought of, and Lancelot
longed for a little shooting and hunting. For my part, I was by no means
loth to tread the soil again, for, though I love the sea dearly, I have
no hatred for firm earth as other seamen have, but look upon myself as a
kind of amphibious animal, and like the land and the water impartially.
And there was a great joy and wonder to me to see a new country and a
new town--I, who knew of no other town than Sendennis, and knew no more
of London than of Grand Cairo, or of the capital of the Mogul. I
remember that we stayed some days under the roof of a leading Dutch
merchant of the place, who entertained us very handsomely, and that his
brother, who was a somewhat younger man than he, and who spoke our
English tongue well, took Lancelot and me many times a-shooting and
a-fishing, and that we had some rare and savage sport. For the town is
but a small one, and there is excellent sport to be had well-nigh at its
back doors, as it were. I should have loved dearly to have wandered
inward far inland towards the great mountains, for I heard wonderful
tales, both from the Dutchmen and their black men, of treasures that the
bowels of these mountains were said to hold. Of course that was out of
the question, with the Royal Christopher waiting for her fate; but the
tales fired me with memories of those Eastern tales that I have told you
of, and I longed to out-rival Master Sindbad.

I cannot conscientiously affirm that I was sorry to leave Cape Town, and
the wines that the Dutch settlers made, and the amazing Hottentots, and
the other marvels of that my first experience of strange distant
countries. We were all the better for our rest, Marjorie and Captain
Amber, Lancelot, the colonists, the crew, and, in a word, all our
fellowship. But we were all eager to be on the way again, for very
different reasons. Captain Amber, because he was keen to place his foot
upon his Land of Promise; Lancelot, because he wished what his uncle
wished; Marjorie, because she wished to be with Lancelot; I myself, much
out of eager, restless curiosity for new places and new adventures. For
I was so simple in those days that the mere crossing of the seas seemed
to me to be an adventure, a thing that I came later to regard as no more
adventurous than the hir