And the Child said to all of them, "I do not know the Song yet, but I shall know it by-and-by, and then we will sing it together."
CHAPTER VIII.
After this the Child would often stand gazing out over the sea or into the heavens. He felt as if he were always on the point of finding something, yet all his seeking was full of hope and without disquiet; for after that dream he never doubted that one day he should learn the words of the Song.
One morning, as he was looking out over the sea, watching the dimpling and sparkling of the laughing waves, and dreaming about his dream, he descried something dark rising and falling on the waters. As he watched it, it came nearer, and he perceived that it was a little round wooden box; and to his great delight he saw that the advancing tide would soon lay it at his feet. He could not wait until it reached the dry beach, but plashed through the waves, caught it in his arms, and carried it in triumph to the shingly ridge above the sands. There he seated himself to examine his treasure: he could not help in some way connecting it with his dream; he thought the sweet Singers must have sent it him from the sky. The little box had something of the shape of the shells of his friends of the sabella family, and it sounded hollow, but it was closed at both ends with a flat piece of wood. At first he could find no way of opening it; so he began to admire the beautiful flowers and fruits and leaves which were carved in wreaths and garlands round the tube. The fruits and flowers were strange to the Child, and he wondered if they were like those which grew in the home of the sweet Singers.
At length as he turned the tube over and over a little muffled voice came to him from inside and said, "Put me into the sea again until to-morrow morning, and I will open the box for you."
"Who are you?" asked the Child.
"I am a teredo," replied the little muffled voice. "I have been very busy for some days boring through the hinge of this strange box, and in a few hours I shall quite have finished my work, if you will throw me into the sea, so that I may have something to drink; for I can assure you people who work as hard as I do get very thirsty."
So the Child took the box to his rock-pool, and laid it on a ledge beneath the water, where he thought it would be safe from being washed away by the next tide. He could not bear to lose sight of his new treasure; he did not know what might be inside.
Whilst he was waiting he found the teredo a very amusing companion.
"What do you look like?" he asked.