They were wonderful eyes, those of the Skipper.  Most black eyes are wanting in the depths that one sounds in blue, or gray, in brown, more rarely in hazel eyes; they flash with an outward brilliancy, they soften into velvet, but one seldom sees through them into the heart.  But these eyes, though black beyond a doubt, had the darkness of deep, still water, when you look into it and see the surface mantling with a bluish gloss, and beneath that depth upon depth of black—­clear, serene, unfathomable.  And when a smile came into them,—­ah, well! we all know how that same dark water looks when the sun strikes on it.  The sun struck now, and little John felt warm and comfortable all through his body and heart.

“The bottom of the sea?” said the Skipper, taking up a shell and polishing it on his coat-sleeve.  “Yes, that is a fine place, Colorado.  You mind not that I call you Colorado?  It pleases me,—­the name.  A fine place, truly.  You have never seen the sea, young gentleman?”

The boy shook his head.

“Never, really!” he said.  “I—­I’ve dreamed about it a great deal, and I think about it most of the time.  There’s a picture in my geography book, just a piece of sea, and then broken off, so that you don’t see any end to it; that makes it seem real, somehow, I don’t know why.

“But I’ve heard the sound of it!” he added, his face brightening.  “There’s a shell in Mr. Scraper’s parlour, on the mantelpiece, and sometimes when he goes to sleep I can get it for a minute, and hold it to my ear, and then I hear the sound, the sound of the sea.”

“Yes,” said the Skipper, taking up another shell from one of the shelves, a tiger cowry, rich with purple and brown.  “The sound of the sea; that is a good thing.  Listen here, young gentleman, and tell me what the tiger say to you of the sea.”

He held the shell to the boy’s ear, and saw the colour and the light come like a wave into his face.  They were silent for a moment; then the child spoke, low and dreamily.

“It doesn’t say words, you know!” he said.  “It’s just a soft noise, like what the pine-trees make, but it sounds cool and green and—­and wet.  And there are waves a long way off, curling over and over, and breaking on white beaches, and they smell good and salt.  And it seems to make me know about things down under the sea, and bright colours shining through the water, and light coming ’way down—­cool, green light, that doesn’t make you wink when you look at it.  And—­and I guess there are lots of fishes swimming about, and their eyes shine, too, and they move just as soft, and don’t make any noise, no more than if their mother was sick in the next room.  And on the ground there seem to be like flowers, only they move and open and shut without any one touching them.  And—­and—­”