Thus the weeks flew past, with the inexorable rapidity of monotonously happy hours. Nature grew rhythmical with the youthful happiness of the Wallace reading party. With elaborate regularity the ebbs and flows coursed over the gleaming sands; up rose the sun, bejewelled the meridian sky, and set once more; each eventide there came an unique and quotidian miracle of colour attendant upon its marine accouchement. And nightly Gaveston stood breathless, hushed, pulsating, beneath the twinkling of little, little stars, so deliberate and glamorous that they seemed like to the remote, liturgical swinging of lanthorns, carven with outlandish birds and belacquered with esoteric fishes, in some half-religious dancing festival of Old Japan.
“I don’t think I was ever so happy!” said David one morning at breakfast.
And no one disagreed with him.
It was with David that Gaveston passed most of his time. He always found him a satisfying companion, ever eager to listen and encourage, and to David one glowing afternoon, lying on the sand in the shady mouth of a stalactitous cave, Gaveston exposed his new determination, his latest programme.
“Power!” he said succinctly.
“Power! Power!” echoed back the stalactites.
“Power?” added David.
“Yes, power,” nodded Gaveston.