'That's Rosabel Lee, that's my wife; I'm Liakim Lee,' said the little man, gathering together his forlorn old rods and tackle, and pulling up his anchor.
| "In the kingdom down by the sea |
| Lived the beautiful Annabel Lee," |
I quoted, sotto voce.
'And what very remarkable feet had she!' added Raymond, improvising under the inspiration of certain shoes, scow-like in shape, gigantic in length and breadth, which had made themselves visible at the top round of the ladder.
At length the shabby old boat got under way, and we followed in its path, turning off to the right through a network of channels, now pulling ourselves along by the reeds, now paddling over a raft of lily-pads, now poling through a winding labyrinth, and now rowing with broad sweeps across the little lake. The sun was sinking, and the western sky grew bright at his coming; there was not a cloud to make mountain-peaks on the horizon, nothing but the level earth below meeting the curved sky above, so evenly and clearly that it seemed as though we could go out there and touch it with our hands. Soon we lost sight of the little lighthouse; then one by one the distant sails sank down and disappeared, and we were left alone on the grassy sea, rowing toward the sunset.
'We must have come a mile or two, and there is no sign of a house,' I called out to our guide.
'Well, I don't pretend to know how far it is, exactly,' replied Liakim; 'we don't know how far anything is here in the Flats, we don't.'
'But are you sure you know the way?'
'O my, yes! We've got most to the boy. There it is!'
The 'boy' was a buoy, a fragment of plank painted white, part of the cabin-work of some wrecked steamer.