"But we're friends, eh?—you and I—just as before?"
"Oh, of course—only you might have told. . . . And I've brought you a parrot. Remember the parrots in that old fellow's shop in Port Nassau?"
She led him to talk of his sea adventures, of the ship, of the West Indies among which they had been cruising; and as they wandered back from terrace to terrace he poured out a stream of boyish gossip about his shipmates, from Captain Vyell down to the cook's dog. Half of it was Hebrew to her; but in every sentence of it, and in the gay, eager voice, she read that the child had unerringly found his vocation; that the sea lent him back to the shore for a romp and a holiday, but that to the sea he belonged.
"There's one thing against shipboard though." He had come to a halt, head aslant, and said it softly, eyeing a tree some thirty yards distant.
"What?"
"No stones lying about." Picking up one, he launched it at a nuthatch that clung pecking at the moss on the bark. "Hit him, by George! Come—"
He ran and she raced after him for a few paces, but stopped half-way, with her hand to her side. The nuthatch was not hit after all, but had bobbed away into the green gloom.
"Tell you what—you can't run as you used," he said critically.
"No? . . ." She was wondering at the mysterious life a-flutter in her side—that it should be his brother.
"Not half. I'll have to get you into training. . . . Now show me the stables, please."