only the bare knowledge that, like many another Island man in those
times--ay, and in all times--he had gone down to the sea and had never
returned therefrom.

That was too common a thing to require any explanation, and it was not till
long afterwards, when I was a grown man, and so many other strange things
had happened that it was necessary, or at all events seemly, that I should
know all about my father, that George Hamon, under the compulsion of a very
strange and unexpected happening, told me all he knew of the matter.

This, then, that I tell you now is the picture wrought into my own mind by
what I gathered from him and from others, regarding events which took place
when I was close upon three years old.

And first, let me say that I hold myself a Sercq man born and bred, in
spite of the fact that--well, you will come to that presently. And I count
our little isle of Sercq the very fairest spot on earth, and in that I am
not alone. The three years I spent on ships trading legitimately to the
West Indies and Canada and the Mediterranean made me familiar with many
notable places, but never have I seen one to equal this little pearl of all
islands.

You will say that, being a Sercq man, that is quite how I ought to feel
about my own Island. And that is true, but, apart from the fact that I have
lived there the greater part of my life, and loved there, and suffered
there, and enjoyed there greater happiness than comes to all men, and that
therefore Sercq is to me what no other land ever could be,--apart from all
that, I hold, and always shall hold, that in the matter of natural beauty,
visible to all seeing eyes, our little Island holds her own against the
world.