"You never told me he was redheaded before, or that he captured
your galley," I said, after a discreet interval.
Charlie did not raise his eyes.
"He was as red as a red bear," said he, abstractedly. "He came
from the north; they said so in the galley when he looked for
rowers--not slaves, but free men. Afterward--years and years
afterward--news came from another ship, or else he came back----"
His lips moved in silence. He was rapturously retasting some poem
before him.
"Where had he been, then?" I was almost whispering that the
sentence might come gentle to whichever section of Charlie's brain
was working on my behalf.
"To the Beaches--the Long and
Wonderful Beaches!" was the reply, after a minute of silence.
"To Furdurstrandi?" I asked, tingling from head to foot.
"Yes, to Furdurstrandi," he pronounced the word in a new fashion
"And I too saw----" The voice failed.
"Do you know what you have said?" I shouted, incautiously.
He lifted his eyes, fully roused now. "No!" he snapped. "I wish
you'd let a chap go on reading.
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