that "roared around him," by indicating with his hand a perfect circle,
of which he was the axis; he adjured his father, the late Admiral
Casabianca, by clasping his hands before his chin, as if wanting to
be manacled in an attitude which he was miserably conscious was unlike
anything he himself had ever felt or seen before; he described that
father "faint in death below," and "the flag on high," with one
single motion. Yet something that the verses had kindled in his
active imagination, perhaps, rather than an illustration of the verses
themselves, at times brightened his gray eyes, became tremulous in
his youthful voice, and I fear occasionally incoherent on his lips. At
times, when not conscious of his affected art, the plain and all upon it
seemed to him to slip away into the night, the blazing camp fire at
his feet to wrap him in a fateful glory, and a vague devotion to
something--he knew not what--so possessed him that he communicated it,
and probably some of his own youthful delight in extravagant voice, to
his hearers, until, when he ceased with a glowing face, he was surprised
to find that the card players had deserted their camp fires and gathered
round the tent.




CHAPTER V


"You didn't say 'Stay, father, stay,' enough, Kla'uns," said Susy
critically. Then suddenly starting upright in Mrs. Peyton's lap, she
continued rapidly, "I kin dance. And sing. I kin dance High Jambooree."

"What's High Jambooree, dear?" asked Mrs. Peyton.