“Help me down, quick,” said the Queen.
She did not wait for the help she asked. Disdaining even the foothold of the tap she slid over the edge of the tank and came down with a crash on the rolling stones at Kalliope’s feet. Phillips followed her with a single bound.
Kalliope pointed with her finger to a boat, another boat, which had just grounded on the beach. Stephanos the Elder stepped from it and bowed low to the Queen, bowed so low that his long beard almost touched the ground.
“Well, I’m blest!” said Phillips.
“My!” said the Queen, “isn’t it lucky I saw Kalliope just when I did? Fancy if that old fellow had caught us! I don’t so much mind about Kalliope, though of course it was awful. But I never could have looked the old man in the face if he had seen us.”
Later on, while they sat at luncheon on the sand of a little cove near the entrance of the cave, the Queen suddenly burst into a peal of merry laughter.
“Say,” she said, “he stalked us rather better than we stalked him yesterday, didn’t he?”
Next day the Ida, with Phillips on board, set sail for England.