That night, after they had all gone to bed, they saw in a half-asleep state a lantern bobbing up and down in the open hatch. It was held by José, the little monkeyfied one (they had already decided he was the nicest of the crew). He was grinning winningly, and beckoning to them.

Emily was too sleepy to move, and so were Laura and Rachel: so leaving them to lie, the others—Margaret, Edward, and John—scrambled on deck.

It was mysteriously quiet. Not a sign of the crew, but for José. In the bright starlight the town looked unnormally beautiful: there was music coming from one of the big houses up by the church. José conducted them ashore and up to this house: tiptoed up to the jalousies and signed to them to follow him.

As the light struck his face it became transfigured, so affected was he by the opulence within.

The children craned up to the level of the windows and peered in too, oblivious of the mosquitoes making havoc of their necks.

It was a very grand sight. This was the house of the Chief Magistrate: and he was giving a dinner in honour of Captain Jonsen and his mate.There he sat at the head of the table, in uniform; very stiff, yet his little beard even stiffer than himself. His was the kind of dignity that grows from reserve and stillness, from freezing every minute like game which scents the hunter: while in total contrast to him there sat his wife (the important señora who had made so much of Edward), far more impressive than her husband, but doing it not by dignity but by that calculated abandon and vulgarity which transcends dignity. Indeed, her flinging about got the greater part of its effect from the very formality of her setting.

When the children arrived at the window she must even have been discussing the size of her own belly: for she suddenly seized the shy hand of the mate, and made him, willy-nilly, feel it, as if to clench an argument.

As for her husband, he did not seem to see her: nor did the servants: she was such a very great lady.

But it was not her, it was the meal which raped José’s attention. It was certainly an impressive one. Together on the table were tomato soup, mountain mullet, cray-fish, a huge red-snapper, land-crabs, rice and fried chicken, a young turkey, a small joint of goat-mutton, a wild duck, beef steak, fried pork, a dish of wild pigeons, sweet potatoes, yuca, wine, and guavas and cream.

It was a meal which would take a long time.

Captain Jonsen and the lady appeared to be on excellent terms: he pressing some project on her, and she, without the least loss of amiability, putting it on one side. What they were talking about, of course, the children could not hear. As a matter of fact, it was themselves. Captain Jonsen was trying to get the lady to discuss the disposal of his impromptu nursery: the most reasonable solution being plainly to leave them at Santa Lucia, more or less in her charge. But she was adept at eluding the importunate. It was not till the banquet was over that he realised he had failed to make any arrangement whatever.

But long before this, before the dinner was ended and the dance began, the children were tired of the peep-show. So José tiptoed away with them, down to the back streets by the dock. Presently they came to a mysterious door at the bottom of a staircase, with a negro standing as if on guard. But he made no effort to stop them, and, José leading them, they climbed several flights to a large upper room.

The air was one you could hardly push through. The place was crowded with negroes, and a few rather smudgy whites: among whom they recognised most of the rest of the crew of the schooner. At the far end was the most primitive stage youever saw: there was a cradle on it, and a large star swung on the end of a piece of string. There was to be a nativity-play—rather early in the season. While the Chief Magistrate entertained the pirate captain and mate, the priest had got this up in honour of the pirate crew.

A nativity-play, with real cattle.

The whole audience had arrived an hour early, so as to see the entry of the cow. The children were just in time for this.

The room was in the upper part of a warehouse, which had been built, through some freak of vanity, in the English fashion, several stories high; and was provided with the usual large door opening onto nothingness, with a beam-and-tackle over it. Many the load of gold-dust and arrowroot which must have once been hoisted into it: now, like most of the others at Santa Lucia, it had long since ceased to be used.

But to-day a new rope had been rove through the block: and a broad belly-band put round the waist of the priest’s protesting old cow.

Margaret and Edward lingered timidly near the top of the stairs; but John, putting his head down and burrowing like a mole, was not content till he had reached the open doorway. There he stood looking out into the darkness: where he saw a slowly revolving cow treading the air a yard fromthe sill, while at each revolution a negro reached out to the utmost limit of balance, trying to catch her by the tail and draw her to shore.

John, in his excitement, leaned out too far. He lost his balance and fell clear to the ground, forty feet, right on his head.

José gave a cry of alarm, sprang onto the cow’s back, and was instantly lowered away—just as if the cinema had already been invented. He must have looked very comic. But what was going on inside him the while it is difficult to know. Such a responsibility does not often fall on an old sailor; and he would probably feel it all the more for that reason. As for the crowd beneath, they made no attempt to touch the body till José had completed his descent: they stood back and let him have a good look at it, and shake it, and so on. But the neck was quite plainly broken.

Margaret and Edward, however, had not any clear idea of what was going on, since they had not actually seen John fall. So they were rather annoyed when two of the schooner’s crew appeared and insisted on their coming back to bed at once. They wanted to know where John was: but even more they wanted to know where José was, and why they weren’t to be allowed to stay. However they obeyed, in the impossibility of asking questions, and started back to bed.

Just as they were about to go on board the schooner, they heard a huge report on their left, like a cannon. They turned; and looking past the quiet, silver town, with its palm-groves, to the hills behind, they saw a large ball of fire, travelling at a tremendous rate. It was quite close to the ground: and not very far off either—just beyond the Church. It left a wake of the most brilliant blue, green, and purple blobs of light. For a while it hovered: then it burst, and the air was shortly charged with a strong sulphurous smell.

They were all frightened, the sailors even more than the children, and hastened on board.

In the small hours, Edward suddenly called Emily in his sleep. She woke up: ‘What is it?’

‘It’s rather cow-catching, isn’t it?’ he asked anxiously, his eyes tight shut.

‘What’s the matter?’

He did not answer, so she roused him—or thought she had.

‘I only wanted to see if you were arealCow-catching Zomfanelia,’ he explained in a kind voice: and was immediately deep asleep again.

In the morning they might easily have thought the whole thing a dream—if John’s bed had not been so puzzlingly empty.

Yet, as if by some mute flash of understanding,no one commented on his absence. No one questioned Margaret, and she offered no information. Neither then nor thereafter was his name ever mentioned by anybody: and if you had known the children intimately you would never have guessed fromthemthat he had ever existed.