The Skipper was coming forward with a shell in his hand of exquisite
colour and shape.

"Perhaps the young lady like to see this?" he said. "This the Voluta
Musica,--a valuable shell, young lady. You look, and see the lines of
the staff on the shell, so? Here they run, you see! The mermaids under
the water, they have among themselves no sheet-music, so on shells they
must read it. Can the young lady follow the notes if she take the shell
in her hand?"

He laid the lovely thing in the girl's hand, and marked how the polished
lip and the soft pink palm wore the same tender shade of rose; but he
said nothing of this, for he was not Franci.

Lena examined the shell curiously. "It does look like music!" she said.
"But there ain't really any notes, are there? Not like our notes, I
mean. If there was, I should admire to see how they sounded on the reed
organ. It would make a pretty pin, if 't wasn't so big!"

She was about to hand the shell back quietly--she looked like a
rose-leaf in moonlight, this pretty Lena, but she was practical, and had
little imagination--but John caught it from her with a swift yet
timorous motion.

"I want to hear it," he said, his pleading eyes on the Skipper's face.
"I want to hear what it says!"

The dark man nodded and smiled; but a moment later, seeing the lean
fingers of Mr. Endymion Scraper about to clutch the treasure, he took it
quietly in his own hand again, and turned to the old man.