“Nell, do you know,” said he, as they halted for a short time under a big breadfruit tree, from which Kali and Mea cut off large melon-shaped fruits, “it sometimes seems to me as though I were a wandering knight.”
“And what is a wandering knight?” asked Nell, turning her pretty little face toward him:
“A long, long time ago, in the Middle Ages, there were such knights, who rode about the country looking for adventures. They fought with giants and dragons—and do you know each one had his lady, whom he protected and defended.”
Stasch thought a moment and then answered:
“No; you are too young for that. Those ladies were grown up——”
And the idea never struck him that perhaps never had wandering knight ever served lady so faithfully as he had his little sister. He took everything that he had done for her as a matter of course.
But Nell felt hurt by his words, and screwing up her mouth into a pout, she said:
“You once told me in the desert that I acted like a big girl of thirteen. Ah!”
“Only once; but you are merely eight years old.”
“Oh, that is a great while off, and then I shall be twenty-four, but at that age a man does not think about any lady, for he has something quite different to think of then; that is very evident.”
“By that time I shall be an engineer or a mariner, or, if war were to break out in Poland, I should travel there, to fight as my father fought.”
“But will you positively return to Port Said?”
“For the present we both must return there.”
And immediately her eyes were veiled by sadness and homesickness. As good luck would have it, a swarm of beautiful gray parrots, with pink heads and rose-colored down under their wings, flew toward them. The children immediately forgot what they had been talking about, and their eyes followed the flight of the birds.
The flock of parrots flew over a group of Euphorbia and came down upon a neighboring sycamore, through the branches of which could be heard voices that sounded like a chattering council, or a terrible quarrel.
“These are the parrots that learn to speak the most readily,” said Stasch. “As soon as we make a longer halt I will do my best to try to catch one for you.”
“Oh, Stasch, I thank you,” cried Nell joyfully. “I will call him ‘Daisy.’ ”