“Well, I am glad; I must say that his conversation is very delightful. He is quite a savant, and he is also a hypnotist.”
Back came Antonio. His birds had been kissed and blest, and had flown away.
Then at Mrs. Stuart’s request, backed up by the voices of the happy children, Antonio produced his guitar, and never did he play more sweetly—sometimes sadly even to pathos—nor sing more clearly.
His voice and the breaking music of the sad guitar died away in softest cadence at last, and for a few seconds no one spoke, so full were their hearts. When they did speak, it was only to say, “Oh, thank you, captain, thank you.”
But Antonio knew children well, and knew therefore that very sad music hardly accorded with their hearts.
So he seized the guitar once again.
“Dance, dearies, dance,” he cried merrily, as he struck up a beautiful Italian waltz.
It was a charming and delightful sight to see those children dancing in their gleefulness on the smooth green sward. Davie Drake chose Phœbe for his partner, and Barclay had little Teenie.
But Pandoo went gallantly to Maud’s rescue, and so the dancing was kept up, until the bairns were fain to throw themselves on the sward through sheer fatigue.
Then Antonio stowed away the guitar, and shortly after this, and just as the sun began to wester, preparations for the return voyage, as Antonio called it, were made and completed.