Then Anna opened her plans to Simeon.

“Listen!” she said.  “I have been reading in a book of my father’s about this place, and there was a strange great bird once on Suliscanna.  It has been lost for years, so the book says; and if we could get it, it would be worth a hundred pounds.  We are going to seek it.”

“That is nonsense,” said Simeon, “for you can get a goose here for sixpence, and there is no bird so big that it would be worth the half of a hundred pounds.”

“Goose yourself, boy,” said Anna tauntingly.  “I did not mean to eat, great stupid thing!”

“What did you mean, then?” returned Simeon.

“You island boy, I mean to put in wise folks’ museums—­where they put all sorts of strange things.  I have seen one in London.”

“Seen a bird worth a hundred pounds?” Simeon was not taking Anna’s statements on trust any more.

“No, silly—­not the bird, but the museum.”

“Um—­you can tell that to Donald; I know better than to believe.”

“Ah, but this is true,” said Anna, without anger at the aspersion on her habitual truthfulness.  “I tell you it is true.  You would not believe about the machine-boat that runs by steam, with the smoke coming from it like the spout of our kettle, till I showed you the picture of it in father’s book.”

“I have seen the lion and the unicorn fighting for the crown.  There are lies in pictures as well as in books!” said Simeon, stating a great truth.

“But this bird is called the Great Auk—­did you never hear your father tell about that?”

Simeon’s face still expressed no small doubt of Anna’s good faith.  The words conveyed to him no more meaning than if she had said the Great Mogul.

Then Anna remembered.

“It is called in Scotland the Gare Fowl!”

Simeon was on fire in a moment.  He stopped rowing and started up.

“I have heard of it,” he said.  “I know all that there is to know.  It was chased somewhere on the northern islands and shot at, and one of them was killed.  But did it ever come here?”

“I have father’s book with me, and you shall see!” Being prepared for scepticism, Anna did not come empty-handed.  She pulled a finely bound book out of a satchel-pocket that swung at her side.  “See here,” she said; and then she read:  “’After their ill-usage at the islands of Orkney, the Gare Fowl were seen several times by fishermen in the neighbourhood of the Glistering Beaches on the lonely and uninhabited island of Suliscanna.  It is supposed that a stray bird may occasionally visit that rock to this day.’”

Simeon’s eyes almost started from his head.

“Worth a hundred pounds!” he said over and over as if to himself.

Anna, who knew the ways of this most doubting of Thomases, pulled a piece of paper from her satchel and passed it to him to read.  It related at some length the sale in a London auction-room of a stuffed Great Auk in imperfect condition for one hundred and fifty pounds.