“And the whole is defended round the coast by giant cliffs, alive with giant birds; but we’ll see for ourselves in a day or two, Greenie, if you’ll only whistle for the wind.”
“If it comes.”
“Yes, if it comes.”
That same night in the first watch, which happened to be Peter’s, we told, or rather I told, him all I knew of Mattie’s history.
He was silent for some time afterwards, leaning quietly over the weather bulwarks, watching the phosphorescence in the sea. That was a glorious sight indeed, but Peter was not thinking about that at all. “Did it ever occur to you, Jack,” he said at length, “that this Adriano whom you so befriended—”
“Who so befriended us.”
”—Might be one of the sailors saved from the wreck? might be even Mattie’s father?”
“No, no, no,” I cried, “not that, Peter. It certainly was unaccountable that when she first saw Adriano she seemed to recognise him, but remember that she could have been little over a year old when the shipwreck occurred. Besides, I wouldn’t like to think of Adriano, friend and all as he must always rest in my memory, being Mattie’s father.”
“Liking has nothing to do with it one way or another.”
“No, certainly not.”