Priscilla's Spies

ote period, it seems, the ocean broke in and submerged a tract of low land between the mountains which bound the north and south shores of the bay. What once were round hillocks rising from bo

om the grandeur of its strength so that it wanders, puzzled, bewildered, through the waterways among the islands. The land asserts itself. Things which belong to the land approach with contemptuous familiarity the very verges of their mighty foe. On the edges of the water the islanders build their hayricks, redolent of rural life, and set up their stacks of brown turf. Geese and ducks, whose natural play places are muddy pools and inland streams, swim through the salt water in the sheltered bays below the cottage

desperate flight by some maddening fear, prepared, so great is the terror behind them, to trample on their own comrades in the race for security. One after another all over the bay the wrack-clad backs of rocks appear. Long swathes of brown slimy weed, tugging at submerged roots, lie writhing on the surface of the ebbing streams. The islands grow larger. Confused heaps of round boulders appear under their western bluffs. Cormorants perch in flocks on shining stones, stretching out their narrow wings, peering through tiny black eyes at the withdrawal of the s

boatman needs something more than skill, must rely upon an inborn instinct for locality if he is not to find himself embayed and aground in some strange land-locked corner far from his home. Or, in the splendid summer days the islands seem poised a foot or two above the glistening water. The white terns hover and plunge, re-emerge amid the joyful callings of their fellows, each with some tiny silver fish to feed to the yellow chicks which gape to them from the short, coarse grass among the rocks. Curlews call to each other from island to island, and high answering calls come from the sea-saturated fields of the mainland. Small broad b

ich has taken a different way and reached the same point in strong opposite flow. The little glistening wavelets leap to meet each other, like lovers reunited whose mouths are hungry for the pressure of glad greetings. There are places where the water eddies round and round, where smooth eager l

ers at their p

on round earth

tide has stolen across the beaches below the cottages and carried away the garbage cast there. It has passed where a little while before the cattle strayed, and passing has been stained. Here is no breaking of clear green waves against black defiant rocks, n

her white sails bellied with the pleasant wind. Prisc

in going with Priscilla in the Tortoise, wrong of a particularly flagrant kind. He thought of himself as a man of responsibility placed in the position of trust. Had he been guilty of a breach of trust? It seemed remotely unlikely, so cheerful and

ome. I ought not to have come when Uncle

bit. He only pretends to, has to, you know, on account of Aunt Jul

tone comforted him a little. Ye

ne," he said, "yo

dead, cock sure that we'd be drowned. She'd probably spend the afternoon planning out nice warm ways

s evening. We shall

ld neither lure nor drive him into any kind of deceit a

t home. She'll be pretty mad, of course, inwardly; b

her principles h

ich, of course, we're not going to be-if we believed we weren't drowned? And Aunt Juliet, with her principles, would be bound to believe we weren't, even if we were. We've only got to put it to her that way and she won't have a ghost of a grievance left. It

age in the Tortoise, with Priscilla as leader of the expedition, he would have bidden a long farewell to his friends and gone forth cheerfully. But he did not see that this parti

here is a German spy at the present moment ma

. Dupré himself, not the remote divine head-master in the calm Elysium of his garden, could have escaped a thrill at the mention of such a s

said. "W

t, mapping out mud-banks and things so as to be able to run a masked flotilla of torpedo boats in and out when the time comes. The

been appearing with disquieting frequency. They are met with in th

say there's a Ge

rock off the point of Delginish. If it hadn't been for me he'd have been there still, only drowned, of course, for his boat floated away from him. I wish now that I'd left him there, but,

y that such a thing would be spiffin

nd if he is, it's our plain duty to hunt him down at any risk. Sylvia Courtney says that Wordsworth's 'Ode to Duty

iterature. He was not in a position to discuss the value of Wor

had to take the Tortoise. The Blue Wanderer wouldn't have done it for us. She won't go to windward. But the Tortoise is a racing boat. Father bought her cheap at Kingstown becaus

me. He was just beginning to recover from the feeling of bewildered annoyance

there are spies, and I saw about the capture of that

his looking as innocent as a child. That's the way spies always look. Besides, I don't think his clothes really belonged to him. I could see that at a glance. He had a pair of white flannel trousers with creases down the fronts of the legs, quite as swagger as yours, if not swaggerer, and a white sweater. He didn't

and cold-blooded murder which he happens to have committed. On land his life would be a burden to him. But let him go down to the sea in a small white sailed ship, and in forty-eight hours or less, he will have ceased to feel any remorse for his victim. This may be the reason why all Protestant nations are maritime powers. Having denied themselves the orthodox anaesthetic of the confessional, these peoples have been oblig

quite possible that the Portuguese, having in their new Republic developed a strong antipathy to sacraments and so laid up for themselves a future of spiritual disquiet, may see their ancient marit

ng round her searchingly, "that he's a

comfortable,

out of the bay I shall have to jibe, and that means

boat with such swiftness that he had no time to duck his head to avoid it. His straw hat, struck on the brim, was swept over the side of the boat. He found himself thrown down against the gunwale, while a quantity of cold water poured ove

ppened?" a

's all right. We didn't ship more than a bucketful. I say, I'm rather sorry about your hat; but that's a rotten kin

it g

quite. We couldn't get

hat," said Frank,

if your ankle's not too bad. I must luff a bit or

han before. He clung to the weather stay and watched the bubbling water tear past within an inch or two of the lower gunwale. A sudden spasm of extreme nervousness seized him. He looked anxiously at Priscilla. She seemed to be entirely calm and self-possessed. His self-respect reasserted itself. He remembered that she was merely a gir

lla," he said,

," said

knew the exultation of such moments. The dash across the goal line from a swiftly taken pass is a thing to live for. Frank, as a fast three-quarter back

ed him the old boat. He might be there, but he isn't. I can see the whole slope of the isla

ings, with the singing of the wind and the gurgling swish of the flying boat in his ears, any adventure seemed possible. The prosaic

Don't let us bother about the

k under the foot of the sail. I can't see to leewa

and difficult attitude. He peered

"except three bullocks. But I can

can't be at the west end of it, for it is all bluff and bou

m of the boat, and peeped under the sail.

s Inishark. He may be there. There's a well on it, and he

gazed under the sail at Inishark. The boat, swayin

te stone on the ridge o

a white stone of any size in the wh

a back that went up into a point. I believe it

intoxicated him. The sight of the triangula

Priscilla. Go do

la was

There's no use running all that way down to leeward

Frank. "I can see now

ards, crooked her elbow over the tiller, leaned over the

Do you think you can be a bit nippier in getting over the centreboard than you were last

on him. Thinking over the matter afterwards, he remembered that she had apologised at the time for her

"All right I'll do w

you wouldn't when the time came. That ankle of yours, you know. Af

of the tents looking at us throu

," said

main sheet as the boat

ck off the jib sheet and haul down the other.

ope indicated to him and then heard a noise as if some one at the bottom of the se

aid Priscilla. "Up

a gave the main sheet a turn round a cleat and stretched forward, holding the tiller with her left hand. She grasped a rope, one out of a tangled web of wet ropes, and tugged.

Priscilla, "w

the boat The centreboard, when she dropped its rope, fell to the bottom of its case,

bing. We're here for hours and hours. I hope you did