“Do you think he will come down there after us?” said the Captain.

“I am sure he won’t,” said Daisy.

“So am I sure.  We are safe, Daisy.  Now I am your prisoner and you are my prisoner; and we will set each other at any work we please.  This is a nice place.”

Behind them, was the high, steep, wooded bank, rising right up.  Before them was a little strip of pebbly beach, and little wavelets of the river washing past it.  Beyond lay the broad stream, all bright in the summer sunshine, with the great blue hills rising up misty and blue in the distance.  Nothing else; a little curve in the shore on each side shut them in from all that was above or below near at hand.

“Why this is a fine place,” repeated the Captain.  “Were you ever here before?”

“Not in a long time,” said Daisy.  “I have been here with June.”

“June!  Aren’t we here with June now?”

“Now!—­O I don’t mean the month—­I mean mamma’s black June,” said Daisy laughing.

“Well that is the first time I ever heard of a black June!” muttered the Captain.  “Does she resemble her name or her colour?”

“She isn’t much like the month of June,” said Daisy.  “I don’t think she is a very cheerful person.”

“Then I wouldn’t come here any more with her—­or anywhere else.”

“I don’t,” said Daisy.  “I don’t go with her, or with anybody else—­much.  Only I go with Sam and the pony.”

“Where’s Ransom?  Don’t he go with you?”

“O Ransom’s older, you know; and he’s a boy.”

“Ransom don’t know his advantages.  This is pleasant, Daisy.  Now let us see.  What were you and I about?”

“You were telling me something, Capt.  Drummond.”

“What was it?  O I know.  Daisy, you are under arrest, you know, and sentenced to extra duty.  The work you are to perform, is to gather as many of these little pebbles together—­these white ones—­as you can in five minutes.”

Daisy went to work; so did the Captain; and very busy they were, for the Captain gathered as many pebbles as she did.  He made her fetch them to a place where the little beach was clean and smooth, and in the shadow of an overhanging tree they both sat down.  Then the Captain throwing off his cap, began arranging the white pebbles on the sand in some mysterious manner—­lines of them hero and lines of them there—­whistling as he worked.  Daisy waited with curious patience; watched him closely, but never asked what he was doing.  At last he stopped, looked up at her, and smiled.

“Well!—­” he said.

“What is it all, Capt.  Drummond?”

“This is your story, Daisy.”

“My story!”

“Yes.  Look here—­these rows of white stones are the Russians;—­these brown stones are the English,” said he, beginning to marshal another set into mysterious order some distance from the white stones.  “Now what shall I do for some guns?”