“So, long years before my coming, had it befallen also with a certain young French nobleman, out there on military service, who had set eyes on Calypso’s grandmother in the streets of that quaint little town, where the French soul seems almost more at home than in France itself.  All had seemed nothing to him—­his ancestral ties, his brilliant future—­compared with that glory of a woman.  He married her and settled down for good, the world well lost, in that dream island.  And the dream he had been faithful to remained faithful to him.  He seems to have been a singularly happy man.  I never saw him, for he was dead when I set foot on his island—­destined, though I knew it not, to live his life again in the love of his daughter.

“She and her mother were living quietly on the small fortune he had left them, in an old palm-shaded house backed by purple mountains, and sung to by the sea.  The soul of old France seemed to haunt that old house like a perfume, taking on a richer colour and drawing a more ardent life from the passionate tropic soul that enfolded it.  Both had mysteriously met and become visibly embodied in the lovely girl, in whose veins the best blood of France blended with the molten gold of tropic suns.  So, as had happened with her mother, again it happened with her—­she took the wandering man to her heart”—­he paused—­“held him there for some happy years”—­he paused again—­“and the rest is—­Calypso.”

We did not speak for a long time after he had ended, but his confidence had touched me so nearly that I felt I owed him my heart in exchange, and it was hard not to cry out:  “And now I love Calypso.  Once more the far-wandered man has found the great light on a lonely shore.”

But I felt that to speak yet—­believer in the miracle of love though he had declared himself to be—­would seem as though I set too slight a value on the miracle itself.

There should be a long hush before we speak, when a star has fallen out of heaven into our hearts.

CHAPTER XIII

We Begin to Dig.

Two or three days went by, but as yet there was no news of either Charlie Webster or Tobias.  Nothing further had been heard of the latter in the settlement, and a careful patrolling of the neighbourhood revealed no signs of him.  Either his sailing away was a bona-fide performance, or he was lying low in some other part of the island—­which, of course, would not be a difficult thing for him to do, as most of it was wilderness—­and as, also, there were one or two coves on the deserted northern side where he could easily bide his time.  Between that coast and us, however, lay some ten miles of scrub and mangrove swamps, and it was manifestly out of the question to patrol them too.  There was nothing to do but watch and wait.

“Vigile et ora,” said the “King.”

But in spite of that counsel, watching and praying was not much in the “King’s” temperament.  Besides, as I could see, he was anxious to begin operations on John Teach’s ruined mansion, and was impatient of the delay.