CHAPTER VIII
News!
Calypso was so long coming back that I began to grow anxious—was, indeed, on the point of going into the town in search of her; when she suddenly appeared, rather out of breath, and evidently a little excited—as though, in fact, she had been running away from something. She caught me by the arm, with a laugh:
"Do you want to see your friend Tobias?" she said.
"Tobias! Impossible!"
"Come here," and she led me a yard or two back the way she had come, and then cautiously looked through the trees.
"Gone!" she said, "but he was there a minute or two ago—or at least some one that is his photograph—and, of course, he's there yet, hidden in the brush, and probably got his eyes on us all the time. Did you see that seven-year apple tree move?"
"His favourite tree," I laughed.
"Hardly strong enough to hang him on though." And I realised that she was King Alcinoüs's daughter.
We crouched lower for a moment or two, but the seven-year apple tree didn't move again, and we agreed that there was no use in waiting for Tobias to show his hand.