‘You go on,’ said Alison, ‘I’ve just thought of something.’
The children were allowed to play in the boat so long as they didn’t loose it from its moorings. The painter was extremely long, and quite the effect of coming home from a long voyage was produced when the three boys pushed the boat out as far as it would go among the boughs of the beech-tree which overhung the water, and then reappeared in the circle of red and yellow light thrown by the Chinese lanterns.
‘What ho! ashore there!’ shouted the captain.
‘What ho!’ said a voice from the shore which, Alison explained, was disguised.
‘We be three poor mariners,’ said Conrad by a happy effort of memory, ‘just newly come to shore. We seek news of the Princess of Tripoli.’
‘She’s in her palace,’ said the disguised voice, ‘wait a minute, and I’ll tell her you’re here. But what do you want her for? (“A poor minstrel of France”) go on, Con.’
‘A poor minstrel of France,’ said Conrad, ‘(all right! I remember,) who has heard of the Princess’s beauty has come to lay, to lay——’
‘His heart,’ said Alison.
