Part 30 (1/2)

'Won't you land and take possession of the island? I'm sure we are longing to hear each other's adventures.'

'You first,' said Mr. Noah to the Lord High Islander, who stepped ash.o.r.e very gravely.

When Helen saw him come forward, she suddenly kissed Philip, and as the Lord High Islander's foot touched the sh.o.r.e of that enchanted island, she simply and suddenly vanished.

'Oh!' cried Philip, 'I wish I hadn't.' And his mouth trembled as girls'

mouths do if they are going to cry.

'The more a present costs you, the more it's worth,' said Mr. Noah.

'This has cost you so much, it's the most splendid present in the world.'

'I know,' said Philip; 'make yourselves at home, won't you?' he just managed to say. And then he found he could not say any more. He just turned and went into the forest. And when he was alone in a green glade, he flung himself down on his face and lay a long time without moving. It had been such a happy week. And he was so tired of adventures.

When at last he sniffed with an air of finality and raised his head, the first thing he saw was Lucy, sitting quite still with her back to him.

'Hullo!' he said rather crossly, 'what are you doing here?'

'Saying the multiplication table,' said Lucy promptly and turned her head, 'so as not even to think about you. And I haven't even once turned round. I knew you wanted to be alone. But I wanted to be here when you'd done being alone. See? I've got something to say to you.'

'Fire ahead,' said Philip, still grumpy.

'I think you're perfectly splendid,' said Lucy very seriously, 'and I want it to be real pax for ever. And I'll help you in the rest of the adventures. And if you're cross, I'll try not to mind. Napoleon was cross sometimes, I believe,' she added pensively, 'and Julius Caesar.'

'Oh, that's all right,' said Philip very awkwardly.

'Then we're going to be real chums?'

'Oh yes, if you like. Only--I don't mind just this once; and it was decent of you to come and sit there with your back to me--only I hate gas.'

'Yes,' said Lucy obediently, 'I know. Only sometimes you feel you must gas a little or burst of admiration. And I've got your proper clothes in a bundle. I've been carrying them about ever since the islanders' castle was washed away. Here they are.'

She produced the bundle. And this time Philip was really touched.

'Now I _do_ call that something like,' he said. 'The seaweed dress is all right here, but you never know what you may have to go through when you're doing adventures. There might be thorns or snakes or anything.

I'm jolly glad to get my boots back too. I say, come on. Let's go to Helen's palace and get a banquet ready. I know there'll have to be a banquet. There always is, here. I know a first-rate bun-tree quite near here.'

'The cocoa-nut-ice plants looked beautiful as I came along,' said Lucy.

'What a lovely island it is. And you made it!'

'No gas,' said Philip warningly. 'Helen and I made it.'

'She's the dearest darling,' said Lucy.

'Oh, well,' said Philip with resignation, 'if you must gas, gas about her.'

The banquet was all that you can imagine of interesting and magnificent.

And Philip was, of course, the hero of the hour. And when the banquet was finished and the last guest had departed to its own house--for the houses on the island were of course all ready to be occupied, furnished to the last point of comfort, with pin-cus.h.i.+ons full of pins in every room, Mr. Noah and Lucy and Philip sat down on the terrace steps among the pink roses for a last little talk.

'Because,' said Philip, 'we shall start the first thing in the morning.