"Why that, my son?" asked the Skipper, waving the smoke aside, that he might see the child's face the clearer. "Why do you think that? I am not dark enough for a Malay, is it that?"
"No, not that," John admitted. "But—well, you have no creese, and you are not wild, nor—nor fierce, nor cruel."
"But I have the creese!" the Skipper protested. "The creese, would you see it? It is in the cabin, behind the door, with other arms of piracy. Still, Colorado, it is of a fact that I was not born in Polynesia, no. As to the fierceness and the cruelty, we shall see, my son, we shall see. If I kept you here on the 'Nautilus' always, took you with me away, suffered you no more to live with your gentle Sir Scraper, that would be cruelty, do you think it? That would be a fierce pirate, and a cruel one, who would do that?"
John raised his head, and looked long and earnestly in his friend's face. "Of course, I know you are only in fun," he said, at last, "because dreams don't really come true; but—but that was my dream, you know! I think I've dreamed you all my life. At least—well, I never knew just what you looked like, or how you would come; but I always dreamed that some one would come from the sea, and that I should hear about the shells, and know what they were saying when they talk; and—" he paused; but the Skipper patted his shoulder gently, in sign that he understood.
"And—what else, Juan Colorado?" he asked, in what seemed the kindest voice in the world. But the boy John hung his head, and seemed loth to go on.
"There—there was another part to what I dreamed," he said at last. "I guess I won't tell that, please, 'cause, of course, you were only in fun."
"And what the harm to tell it," said the Skipper, lightly, "even if it come not true? Dreams are pretty things; my faith, I love to dream mine self. Tell thy friend, Colorado! tell the dream, all the wholeness of it."
There was no resisting the deep, sweet voice. The little boy raised his head again, and looked frankly into the kind, dark eyes.
"I used to dream that I was taken away!" he said, in a low voice.
"Away? Good!" the Skipper repeated.