“Do you care for tea?” she said questioningly, implying clearly a negative answer, which both lads were quick to catch.
“Never take it,” Phil replied quickly. “Do you, Syd?”
Sydney smiled and shook his head.
“Because if you don’t, while the others are drinking it, we can climb Mission Hill back of the town and enjoy the view of the harbor. It’s not far,” she added glancing at the spotless white uniform of the young officers.
She led them at a rapid pace across the garden and by a narrow path into a thickly wooded copse. The path was apparently one not frequently used and was choked with creepers and underbrushes. After a score of yards the path led at a steep angle up the wooded side of one of the low surrounding hills, which at Matautu descended almost to the harbor’s edge. Here the shore is rocky and dangerous.
Alice climbed with the ease of a wood sprite, while the midshipmen lumbered after her in their endeavor to keep pace.
“Here we are,” she cried joyfully as she sprang up the last few feet of incline and seated herself in the fork of a small mulberry tree.
Out of breath, their white trousers and white canvas shoes stained with the juice of entangling vines, and with perspiration streaming in little rivulets down their crimson faces, the two young men looked with amazement at their slim pace-maker; she was not even out of breath.
“Isn’t it worth coming for?” she exclaimed, perfect enjoyment in her girlish voice. “See, the town and the harbor and all the ships lie at our feet; and everything looks so very near;” then she added whimsically, “I sometimes pretend I am queen and order everything and every one about—no one else ever comes here,” she explained quickly. “My sister Margaret came once, but never came again.”
“It’s not easy to get here,” Sydney said, panting slightly, “but it would more than be worth the trouble if by coming one could really know the feeling of being a king or a queen. I haven’t sufficient imagination. What should you do if you were queen?” he asked of Alice.