arid places, there cacti like columns, like candelabra, like dark
writhing fingers thrust from the teeming earth;--Robin-a-dale liked not
the place, wondered what dangerous errand his master was upon, but since
he as greatly feared as greatly loved the man he served, cared not to
ask. Presently Ferne turned, and a few moments found them climbing the
long western slope of the hill, above them the dim outline of the
fortress, the dark fringe of the tunal. Half-way up they came to a
little rocky plateau, and here Ferne paused, hesitated a moment, then
sat down upon a great stone and looked out to sea. He was waiting for
the moon to rise, for with her white finger she must point out that old
way through the tunal of which Master Francis Sark had told him. Was it
indeed there? The man, he thought, had all the marks of a liar. Again,
why should he lie, being in their power?--unless treachery were so
ingrained that it was his natural speech. By all the tokens Sark had
given, the opening should not be fifty yards away. When the moon rose he
would see for himself....

A pale radiance in the east proclaimed her approach. Since wait he must
he waited patiently, and by degrees withdrew his mind from his errand
and from strife and plotting. The boy crouched in silence beside him.
There was air upon these heights, and the stir of it made Robin-a-dale
to shiver. He gazed about him fearfully, for it was a dismal place. From
behind those piled rocks, from the shadow of those strange trees, what
things might creep or spring? Robin thought it time that the adventure
were ended, and had he dared had said as much. Lights were burning upon
the _Cygnet_ where she rode in the pale river, near to the _Phoenix_,
with the _Mere Honour_ and the _Marigold_ just beyond, and there came
over the boy a great homesickness for her decks. He crept as closely as
he might to her Captain, sitting there as quietly as if the teeming,
musky soil were good Devon earth, and that phosphorescent ocean the gray
waves of English seas, and he laid his hand upon Sir Mortimer's booted
knee, and so was somewhat comforted.

Upon Ferne, waiting in inaction, looking out over the vast, dim panorama
of earth and ocean, there fell, after the fever and exaltation, the
stress and exertion of the past hours, a strange mood of quiet, of
dreaming, and of peace. Sitting there in listless strength, he thought
in quietude and tenderness of other things than gold, and fame, and the
fo