"Child?" says she, staring as one vastly amazed, "child--and to me, fool,
to me? All along the Main my name is known and feared."

"So now will I whip you," quoth I, "had others done as much ere this, you
had been a little less evil, perchance." And I reached down a coil of
small cord where it hung with divers other odds and ends. For a moment she
watched me, scowling and fierce-eyed, then as I approached her with the
cords in my hands, she turned on her heel with a swirl of her embroidered
coat-skirts and strode away, mighty proud and disdainful.

When she was clean gone I gathered me brush and driftwood, and striking
flint and steel soon had a fire going and set about cooking certain strips
of dried goat's flesh for my breakfast. Whiles this was a-doing I was
startled by a sudden clatter upon the cliff above and down comes a great
boulder, narrowly missing me but scattering my breakfast and the embers of
my fire broadcast. I was yet surveying the ruin (dolefully enough, for I
was mighty hungry) when hearing a shrill laugh I glanced up to find her
peering down at me from above. Meeting my frowning look she laughed again,
and snapping her fingers at me, vanished 'mid the bushes.

Spoiled thus of my breakfast I was necessitated to stay my hunger with such
viands as I had by me. Now as I sat eating thus and in very ill humour, my
wandering gaze lighted by chance on the shattered remains of a boat that
lay high and dry where the last great storm had cast it. At one time I had
hoped that I might make this a means to escape from the island and had
laboured to repair and make it seaworthy but, finding this beyond my skill,
had abandoned the attempt; for indeed (as I say) it was wofully bilged and
broken. Moreover, at the back of my mind had always lurked a vague hope
that some day, soon or late, she that was ever in my dreams, she that had