“Very good; I suppose I’m bound to obey, but I thought your majesty preferred to go a-sketching.”
“We will do both. Be off, sirrah!”
Otto was not long in launching and getting ready the little punt, or dinghy, belonging to the wreck, which, being too small for carrying goods to the island, had been made over to Pauline as a royal barge for her special amusement, and already had she and her little brother enjoyed several charming expeditions among the sheltered islets of the lagoon, when Otto devoted himself chiefly to rowing and fishing, while his sister sketched with pencil and water-colours. Being expert with both, she took great pleasure therein.
“It is so pleasant and so very engrossing,” she murmured, busying herself with a sketch of Otto as he rowed gently towards one of the smaller islets. “I can’t tell you how much I delight—turn your head a little more to the left—so—and do keep your nose quiet if you can.”
“Impossible,” said Otto. “There’s a little fly that has made up its mind to go into my nose. I can neither drive it away nor catch it while both hands are engaged with the oars, so there’s no resource left but to screw my nose about. But what were you going to say you delighted in?”
“In—in drawing,” replied the queen very slowly, while her pretty little head went up and down as she glanced alternately at her sitter and the sketch-book on her knee; “it—it takes one’s mind—so—off—”
“The cares of state?” said Otto. “Yes, I can easily understand what a-re-re-ha! hk–sh!” he gave way to a convulsive sneeze; “there, it went up at last, and that little fly’s doom is sealed!”
“I should think it was,” said Pauline laughingly. “To be blown from a cannon’s mouth must be nothing to that. Now, do keep still, just for one minute.”
For considerably more than a minute she went on sketching busily, while her brother pulled along very gently, as if unwilling to break the pleasant silence. Everything around was calculated to foster a dreamy, languid, peaceful state of mind. The weather was pleasantly cool—just cool enough to render the brilliant sunshine most enjoyable. Not a zephyr disturbed the glassy surface of the sea outside or the lagoon within, or broke the perfect reflections of the islets among which they moved. The silence would have been even oppressive had it not been for the soft, plaintive cries of wildfowl and the occasional whistling of wings as they hurried to and fro, and the solemn boom of the great breakers as they fell at slow regular intervals on the reef. “Doesn’t it sound,” said Pauline, looking up from her sketch with a flush of delight, “like the deep soft voice of the ocean speaking peace to all mankind?”
“What, the breakers?” asked Otto.