Page:Anderson--Isle of seven moons.djvu/288

276 "What, Dick?"

"Well mebbe she blow up—psst! like that—an' bury us in fire, an' the sea open up an' swallow the beeg ship an' el Capitan with the many whiskerr, who will not listen."

A little too much like her dream was this, and she didn't like it. Seeing this, the gypsy of the sea went on, really believing most of his tale.

"If we hurry, we can sail away before something happen. For by San Federigo who walk on the burning fire an' was not scorch, we die if we do not go. The card say verry soon.

"But we must eet, Senorita; el Capitan has leetle faith but beeg stomach."

Rising, he brought from the tree a brace of wild doves. Sally exclaimed over the lustrous beauty of their plumage, soft grey, irised with the tints one finds in the shadows of pearl-lined shells. Then, having no mind to see the pretty things torn apart, she strolled to the spring, looked in its mirror, and rearranged her hair, trying it this way and that.

So occupied, she did not notice the bird of strange plumage, as brilliant as the parrots above, who strayed into the grove and stood surveying the scene before her, one heavily-ringed hand resting against the stem of the palm. She might indeed have been "the fair Inez who came from out the west."

But it was not a musical cry, such as the immortal heroine would have used, which issued from this dark lady's lips, nor in so quaint a tongue. It was a single word in English that brought the nymph of the spring bolt upright.

"Camera!"