The Flying Inn | Page 4

was 'The United
Kingdom--'"
His female pupil, if she could not exactly be said to be sitting at his feet,
was undoubtedly leaning out very eagerly above his head. Amid the
solitude of the sands she called out in a loud and clear voice, "Can you
tell me the Captain's name?"

The old gentleman jumped, blinked and stared like a startled owl.
Having been talking for hours as if he had an audience of thousands, he
seemed suddenly very much embarrassed to find that he had even an
audience of one. By this time they seemed to be almost the only human
creatures along the shore; almost the only living creatures, except the
seagulls. The sun, in dropping finally, seemed to have broken as a
blood orange might break; and lines of blood-red light were spilt along
the split, low, level skies. This abrupt and belated brilliance took all the
colour out of the man's red cap and green umbrella; but his dark figure,
distinct against the sea and the sunset, remained the same, save that it
was more agitated than before.
"The name," he said, "the Captain's name. I--I understood it was Dalroy.
But what I wish to indicate, what I wish to expound, is that here again
the seeker after truth can find the connection of his ideas. It was
explained to me by Mr. Pumph that he was rearranging the place of
festivity, in no inconsiderable proportion because of the anticipated
return of the Captain in question, who had, as it appeared, taken service
in some not very large Navy, but had left it and was coming home.
Now, mark all of you, my friends," he said to the seagulls "that even
here the chain of logic holds."
He said it to the seagulls because the young lady, after staring at him
with starry eyes for a moment and leaning heavily on the railing, had
turned her back and disappeared rapidly into the twilight. After her
hasty steps had fallen silent there was no other noise than the faint but
powerful purring of the now distant sea, the occasional shriek of a
sea-bird, and the continuous sound of a soliloquy.
"Mark, all of you," continued the man flourishing his green umbrella so
furiously that it almost flew open like a green flag unfurled, and then
striking it deep in the sand, in the sand in which his fighting fathers had
so often struck their tents, "mark all of you this marvellous fact! That
when, being for a time, for a time, astonished-embarrassed--brought up
as you would say short--by the absence of any absolute evidence of
Eastern influence in the phrase 'the old ship,' I inquired from what
country the Captain was returning, Mr. Pumph said to me in solemnity,

'From Turkey.' From Turkey! From the nearest country of the Religion!
I know men say it is not our country; that no man knows where we
come from, of what is our country. What does it matter where we come
from if we carry a message from Paradise? With a great galloping of
horses we carry it, and have no time to stop in places. But what we
bring is the only creed that has regarded what you will call in your
great words the virginity of a man's reason, that has put no man higher
than a prophet, and has respected the solitude of God."
And again he spread his arms out, as if addressing a mass meeting of
millions, all alone on the dark seashore.
* * *
CHAPTER II
THE END OF OLIVE ISLAND
THE great sea-dragon of the changing colours that wriggles round the
world like a chameleon, was pale green as it washed on Pebblewick,
but strong blue where it broke on the Ionian Isles. One of the
innumerable islets, hardly more than a flat white rock in the azure
expanse, was celebrated as the Isle of Olives; not because it was rich in
such vegetation, but because, by some freak of soil or climate, two or
three little olives grew there to an unparalleled height. Even in the full
heat of the South it is very unusual for an olive tree to grow any taller
than a small pear tree; but the three olives that stood up as signals on
this sterile place might well be mistaken, except for the shape, for
moderate sized pines or larches of the north. It was also connected with
some ancient Greek legend about Pallas the patroness of the olive; for
all that sea was alive with the first fairyland of Hellas; and from the
platform of marble under the olive trees could be seen the grey outline
of Ithaca.
On the island and under the trees was a table set in the open air and
covered with