"Hark!" said Dan. "Hear it? There's boats comin' off to us."
"Yais!" The smile gleamed again. "For me. It is no dream. Dey hear my voice when I sing. By'm by you hear dem callin', 'Felipe!' Dat's my name."
"Listen, then," said Dan in a whisper.
The water trickled alongside; they were coming up to their berth. The bells from the church ashore were still. Across the bay there came the clack of oars in rowlocks, pulled briskly, and voices.
"Felipe!" they called. "Felipe!"
The Dago's hand found Dan's.
III
WOOD-LADIES
The pine trees of the wood joined their branches into a dome of intricate groinings over the floor of ferns where the children sat sunk to the neck in a foam of tender green. The sunbeams that slanted in made shivering patches of gold about them. Joyce, the elder of the pair, was trying to explain why she had wished to come here from the glooms of the lesser wood beyond.
"I wasn't 'zactly frightened," she said. "I knew there wasn't any lions or robbers, or anything like that. But—"