"By the way, dear King," I said, assuming a casual manner, "do you happen to have a son?"
"No!" he answered, "Calypso is my only child."
"Very strange!" I said, "we met a whimsical lad in our travels whom I would have sworn was her brother."
"That's odd!" said the "King" imperturbably, "but no! I have no son"; and he seemed to say it with a certain sadness.
Then Calypso came in to join my audience, having, meanwhile, taken the opportunity of twining a scarlet hibiscus among her luxuriant dark curls. I should certainly have told the story better without her, yet I was glad—how glad!—to have her seated there, an attentive presence in a simple gown, white as the seafoam—from which, there was no further doubt in my mind, she had magically sprung.
I gave them the whole story, much as I had told it in John Saunders's snuggery—John P. Tobias, Jr.; dear old Tom and his sucking fish, his ghosts, sharks, skeletons, and all; and when I had finished, I found that the interest of my story was once more chiefly centred in my pock-marked friend of "The wonderful works of God."
"I should like to meet your pock-marked friend," said King Alcinoüs, "and I have a notion that, with you as a bait, I shall not long be denied the pleasure."
"I am inclined to think that I have seen him already," said Calypso, using her honey-golden voice for the base purpose of mentioning him.
"Impossible!" I cried, "he is long since safe in Nassau gaol."
"O! not lately," she answered to our interrogative surprise, and giving a swift embarrassed look at her father, which I at once connected with the secret of the doubloons.