Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/361

 Then they digressed to gentle speculations as to the nature of the Hereafter, and whether or not there were real angels, and just what persons in Chamboro had ever seen a ghost. And were there such things as witches, and what was a sure cure for warts?

Yet even while these eleven brooding philosophers lay disporting themselves in the warm afternoon sunlight, sans scowls, sans firearms, sans clothing, sans watch or outlook—whilst, I repeat, these eleven contented and motionless figures lay heavily incased in a shell of blue clay, stretched out, gazing up at the unfathomable sky and waiting for that earthly pigment to harden and whiten about their youthful ribs, the rotund figure of none other than the town constable of Chamboro was being rowed to the very nose of the Greyhound, silently and cautiously, by a stalwart scion of the Chamboro Boat-House.

And while those eleven pensively happy spirits still lay stretched out on the sand-bank, still blinking at the sky about which they had been holding metaphysical question, the bowline of their gallant ship was noiselessly untied and taken possession of, and in three minutes