of a grass-grown quay he let run down his remaining canvas and laid
the ketch alongside, so gently that one of the seamen, who had cast a
stout fender overside, stepped ashore, and with a slow pull on her
main rigging checked and brought her to a standstill.

"_Aut Lacedaemonium Tarentum_," said the monk at my shoulder quietly;
and, as I stared at him, "Ah, to be sure, this is your Tarentum, is
it not? Yet the words came to me for the sound's sake only and their
so gentle close. Our voyage has even such an ending."

"I had best run on," I suggested, "and warn my father of your
coming."

"It is not necessary."

"Nevertheless," I urged, "they can be preparing breakfast for you,
up at the house, while you and your friends are making ready to come
ashore."

"We have broken our fast," he answered; "and we are quite ready, if
you will be so good as to guide us."

He stepped to the hatchways and called down, announcing simply that
the voyage was ended: and in the dusk there I saw monk after monk
upheave himself from the straw and come clambering up the ladder;
tall monks and short, old monks and young and middle-aged, lean monks
and thickset--but the most of them cadaverous, and all of them yellow
with sea-sickness; twenty-eight monks, all barefoot, all tolerably
dirty, and all blinking in the fresh sunshine. When they were
gathered, at a sign from one of them--by dress not distinguishable
from his fellows--all knelt and gave silent thanks for the voyage
accomplished.

I could see that Billy Priske was frightened: for, arising, they
rolled their eyes about them like wild animals turned loose in an
unfamiliar country, and the whites of their eyes were yellow (so to
speak) with seafaring, and their pupils glassy with fever and from
the sea's glare. But the monk their spokesman touched my arm and
motioned me to lead; and, when I obeyed, one by one the whole troop
fell into line and followed at his heels.

Thus we went--I leading, with him and the rest in single file after
me--up by the footpath through the woods, and forth into sunshine
again upon the green dewy bracken of the deer-park. Here my
companion spoke for the first time since disembarking.

"Your father, sir," said he, looking about him and seeming to sniff
the morning air, "must be a very rich signor."

"On the contrary," I answered, "I have some reason to believe him a
poor man."

He stared down for a moment at his bare feet, and the skirts of