"I am Sylvia—Sylvia—Sylvia."
And the third, she chimes in with:
"I am Celestine, and I have brought you bread."
And they all stood together, shy and natural, looking now at one, now at another of us; but most often, I thought, at little Dolly Venn, who had a way of making them understand which an older man might have envied.
"And wonderful pretty names, too, young ladies, though a seaman doesn't often hear the likes of 'em," cries Peter Bligh, gallant enough, as all Irishmen are. "They're all Pollies in our parts, and it do come easier to the tongue and more convenient if you know many of 'em. Whereby did you hitch up names like those?" asks he; "which, askin' your pardon, seem to me to be took out of a picture-book."
They giggled at this; but old Clair-de-Lune, who was mighty proud of them, and justly, answered Peter Bligh as though the question were serious.
"Monsieur, in my own country I am artiste; I play the drama, the comedy, the tragedy. Clair-de-Lune they call me at the theatre. To the daughters of my master I give the artiste's name—why not? Better the good name than the bad name! It was long year ago, shipmate; the Belle Ile was wrecked on these reef; the maitre is drowned, but I and the young ladies are save. We come, we go, none interfere. The Governor is angry, we hide in the hill; the Governor laugh, we go down to the valley. When the sleep-time comes, we go to the house under the sea: you shall find him a dangerous time, but we hide far down. None frighten Clair-de-Lune; they frighten of him. He become the father according to his best."
It was touching, I must say, to hear this old man's broken story; and prettier still to see the affectionate eyes with which these little girls watched every movement of one to whom, I am sure, they were beholden for all that they got out of Ken's Island. For the rest, the tale was plain enough. The father had been wrecked and drowned on the sword-fish reef; the servant had saved the children and himself from the ship, and his own natural cleverness had done the rest. No one interfered with him, he said; and this was true. I verily believe that the devils in the valley below believed that he and the children with him were nothing more or less than spirits.
I say his story was plain, and yet there was something in it which was Greek to me. He had named a house under the sea, and what that meant, or how any man could build such a house, lay beyond my understanding. I should have asked a question about it there and then, and have sought light on the matter if it hadn't been that the food was already cooked, and, the others being mighty anxious, we sat down to steaming coffee and broiled kid's flesh and good bread and sweet fruit, and I was very willing to keep my curiosity. Once, it is true, the young girl who called herself "Rosamunda" came and sat by my side and wished to talk to me; but, prettily as she spoke our tongue, her measure of it was limited, and we did not get very far, in spite of good intentions.
"Do you like the island, do you like living here?" I asked her.