and been left with
his tail in your hands?

Even so easily did these three long-boats shed their false keels,
which half an hour later were but harmless-looking stacks of timber
among Sir Felix's undergrowth. Half an hour later, had your unwary
feet led you to a certain corner of Sir Felix's well-timbered
demesne, you might have scratched your head and wondered what magic
carpet had transported you into the heart of the Cognac District.
And all this was the work of the men of Troy (not being volunteers)
who had come either in the long-boats or in the many boats escorting
these.

But the women of Troy, being deft with the oar one and all, took the
places of the men left behind in the woods, and, singing yet, brought
both the long-boats and these other boats safely to Lerryn on the
full flood of the tide, and disembarking upon the meadow there,
gathered around the tables under the apple-trees to eat bread and
cream in honour of May-day, looking all the while as if butter would
not melt in their mouths. Between their feasting they laughed a
great deal; but either they laughed demurely, being constrained by
the unwonted presence of Miss Pescod and other ladies of Troy's
acknowledged _elite_, or Miss Marty as yet stood too far off to hear
their voices.

Let us return to Scipio, who, on receiving Miss Marty's permission to
wander, had made his way up through the woods in search of the
Devil's Hedge, along which, as he knew, his master would be leading
back the triumphant Gallants.

Fidelity was ever the first spring of Scipio's conduct. He adored
the Major with a canine devotion, and by an instinct almost canine he
found his way up to the earthwork and chose a position which
commanded the farthest prospect in the direction of Looe. From where
he sat the broad hedge dipped to a narrow valley, climbed the steep
slope opposite, and vanished, to reappear upon a second and farther
ridge two miles away. As yet he could discern no sign of the
returning heroes; but his ear caught the throb of a drum beaten afar
to the eastward.

Of the Major's two body-servants it might be said that the one spoke
seldom and the other never; and again that Cai, who spoke seldom,
was taciturn, while Scipio, who spoke never, was almost affable.
In truth, the negro's was the habitual silence of one who, loving his
fellows, spends all his unoccupied time in an inward brooding, a
continual haze of day-dreams.

Scipio's day-dreams were of a