“I want to see the sorceress,” said Ethel, “provided they don’t accuse me of wishing to take her off to America like Richard the Lion-hearted.”
“As for me,” said Helia, “I should dearly like to see the defile where Morgana stopped the invasion.”
“We shall go together,” answered Ethel; “and I hope the gentlemen will accompany us. For me, it is a place of pilgrimage; it will do us good to compare our useless lives with that of the heroine. We shall gather from it resolution to be brave and energetic, without prejudice, of course, to our right to cry out for the least little ache. Never mind; for a few hours we shall have understood what duty is.”
“But duty doesn’t always mean that one should fight,” said Phil. “It takes other forms as well.”
“It always consists in fighting,” said Ethel; “but not always against some one else—oftenest it is against ourselves.”
“There is no one slain in that case,” remarked Caracal. “The blows we strike ourselves are never mortal—we are careful to strike with the flat of the blade!”
“That’s the way they punish cowards,” said Ethel.
They were interrupted by a lackey announcing the coming of the Duke of Morgania.
They had just finished dining, and they went up on deck to receive the duke. Helia and Sœurette retired.
Without, everything was in shadow. A dense crowd thronged the jetty. The searchlight of the yacht threw its rays upon the shore and brought out here and there white minarets and roofs and domes. A swarm of people—men, women, and children—half blinded by the light, stared at the yacht. The shining of their eyes could be seen; here there was the glitter of a poniard-handle, and there the glow of silver buckles. There were men in great drugget cloaks over their white fustanelle, and women clad in long red garments, which fell straight as on figures in shrines. Anxious faces might be seen, with scared expressions; and from the crowd, pressed together like a herd, mounted up a confused murmur.