He glanced once more at the bay before he returned to his work. The Queen's boat was no longer in sight. The girls had landed perhaps in some quiet creek, or the Queen had taken a fancy to cross the bay and explore the village where her subjects lived.
Kalliope rowed easily and was well content to go on rowing all day. She was almost perfectly happy. Fuller's sweets were a revelation of unimagined delight to her, and she could gaze without interruption at the Queen. There was little in the world left for her heart to desire.
The girls rowed round the shore of the bay. The shadow of the white cliffs was grateful. The Queen delighted to drag her hands through the cool water. The sound of its lapping against the steep rocks soothed her. She liked to peer into the blue depths. When she looked up it was pleasant to meet Kalliope's soft brown eyes and to see the ready smile broaden on the girl's lips. Now and then, laughing, she leaned forward and pressed a chocolate into Kalliope's mouth. The Queen's fingers were often wet with salt water, but that did not spoil the flavour of the sweets for Kalliope.
The boat slipped past high sheer cliffs, past little coves, on whose sand men's feet had surely never trodden, past the mouths of great caves, gloomy, mysterious, from the depths of which came a hollow murmuring of water. The caves had a strange fascination for the Queen. Her eyes followed their steep walls up to the arches of their high dripping roofs, tried to pierce the dim and darkening shades within, gazed down through the water at round boulders and flat shelves of rock, seen magnified and strangely blue in the depths. At first she was half fearful and would not allow the boat to be taken near the mouths of the caves she passed. At the mouth of one cave Kalliope shouted suddenly. Echoes answered her from within, repeating her shout and repeating it till the cries seemed to come from far off, from the very centre of the island. Opposite another cave Kalliope shouted again and banged her oars against the gunwhale of the boat. A flock of grey birds, some kind of rock pigeons, flew out, making a sound of rushing with their wings. The Queen became, little by little, less fearful and more curious.
