Some of the trees were different, with twisted trunks, and pale red blossoms dripping with juice; and this juice tasted like marzipan, but Gwendolen had resolved to give up marzipan.
But it was a lovelier island than they had ever imagined, and soon the little monkey gave a cry of joy, and the next moment he was hugging in his arms another little monkey that had dashed to meet him. It was his wife, and just behind her there were two smaller monkeys waiting to be kissed; and Gwendolen and her aunt could almost have cried to see how happy they all were.
For nearly a month they stayed at the island, sleeping on board, but landing every morning; and Gwendolen learned to swim almost as well as a fish and to climb trees almost as well as a monkey. But Captain Jeremy wasn't really happy until a big steamer happened to come by with news that the man and the woman had been drowned in a storm on their way to try and catch Gwendolen and her aunt. It was now October, and by the time that they arrived home Gwendolen would have been away from school for a term and a half. So they said good-bye to the monkey and his family, and set sail from the island. Gwendolen cried a little, and so did her aunt; but on the way home an odd thing happened, for Captain Jeremy asked her aunt to marry him, and they had to think a lot about the wedding. They decided to get married on Christmas Day, and when Gwendolen's school-friends saw her as a bridesmaid she had grown so tall and straight and happy-looking that they wondered what on earth could possibly have happened to her.
"Sailor, sailor,
What's the song
That you sing
The whole day long?"
And the sailor
Said to me:
"Birth's the jetty,
Time's the sea,
"Death's the harbour,
Life's the trip,
Hope's the pilot,
You're the ship."
"Sailor, sailor,
Tell me true,
What's beyond
Those waters blue?"
But the sailor
Shook his head;
"That's a secret,
Sir," he said.