His heart pounded faster as he attained the altitude of the pine woods where he seemed to have left humanity behind him. Once or twice he saw a shy, half-wild child who fled from its task of gathering fagots at his approach, to gaze at him out of startled eyes from a safe distance.
Occasionally he would stop to look down, from some coign of vantage, at cascading threads of water tumbling into the gorge below, or at a châlet-like house perched far beneath in its trim patch of agriculture. Finally he stretched himself indolently on a carpet of pine needles at the brink of a drop to the valley. Then, with a sense of recognition, he saw the tumbled-down gate of the King's driveway below him to the left, and his face became set and miserable as memory began its work of tearing open wounds not yet old.
Suddenly there drifted up a chorus of children's laughter. He sat up suddenly and looked about, but no one was in sight. Again he heard an unmistakable peal of shrill, childish merriment, seemingly close at hand. He lay flat and looked over the ledge, holding on to a root of a gnarled pine that grew far out at the marge.
Under him, not more than twenty yards below, on a similar natural platform, sat a circle of peasant children, their eyes large with wonderment and interest. In their center, also seated on the earth, was the Queen of Galavia. She was dressed in a short walking skirt and a blue jersey, and as the man gripped the pine root to which he held, and gazed over, she lifted an outstretched finger of a gauntleted hand in illustration of some particularly wonderful point of what was palpably a particularly wonderful fairy story. A third burst of delight came from the listening and responsive auditors, who had no idea by whom they were being entertained.
The peasants of Galavia speak Portuguese. As Benton shifted his position so that he could eavesdrop without being discovered, he found that he could catch some of the words.
"Tell us another story—" piped a high treble voice, "—a story about the beautiful Princess who married the King." The demand was seconded by an immediate clamor of eager voices.
The girl rose unsteadily and shook her head. For a moment she stood looking off over the miles of sea with her hands at her breast and her eyes clouded, oblivious of the small companions of her truancy. She stretched out both strong young arms toward the Mediterranean.
Then she heeded the children's clamor again and, turning to them, she laughed.
"No, no!" she teasingly answered, and the man above realized for the first time that Portuguese is a tongue of liquid music. "These are fairy stories without Princesses. These are perfectly good fairy stories, you know." Then with a sudden burst of confidence, "In really-truly life, Princesses are not much good. Don't any of you ever be a Princess if you can help it!" After planting this seed of treasonable ideas she turned away, adding: "No, no, no! I've run away and I must go back. To-morrow we will have a wonderful story—but no more to-day."
Slowly she made her way down to the old gate, stopping twice to look out to the sea, and above her, choking off the shout that clamored at his lips, the man sat motionless and gave no intimation of his presence.