"She was a Queen in Carthage, more than two thousand years ago. She came to the Islands in a ship, to visit the tin-mines which used to lie between them and the mainland before the sea covered them, and from which she drew her great wealth. Her ship arrived in the middle of the Great Storm; and before she came to land, here on Saaron, the waters were rolling over the richest part of all her dependencies. Little she cared; for in the first place she had never seen it, and could not realise her loss, and moreover her ship had been tossing for three days and nights, past all hope, so that she was glad enough to reach a shore, however barren. She reached it, holding on to the shoulders of a brown man, a Moor, who swam for land as the ship began to break up; and the story goes that when his feet touched the sand he fell forward and died, for the swimming had burst his heart. But have you never heard the song about it?" Vashti sank her voice and began to chant, and low though the strain was, and monotonous, the children had never heard such wonderful singing-- It was the Queen Zenobia With her gold crown, That sailed away from Africa With a down-derry-down! --To westward and to northward From Carthage town, Beyond the strait of Cadiz The sky began to frown. "Well-a-mercy!" cried her ladies, All of high renown; "I think the sea is troublesome And we shall all drown." The seas came white aboard And wetted her gown; "Would I were back in Carthage A-walking up and down! That I were back in Carthage Which is dry ground, I would give my jewels And a thousand pound." Then round went the good ship, And thrice she went round, The third time she brast herself With a down-derry-down! Some cried misericordia, And others did swoun; But up there stood a guardsman A naked man and brown-- "You are the Queen of Carthage And gey young to drown; But hold you to my girdle That goes me around; And swim with me to Saaron, As I will be bound." "Your girdle it is breaking That goeth you around." "Nay, hold you to the girdle That is strong yet and sound; My heart you felt a-breaking, But here is dry ground." With white sand and shingle The shore did abound; With white sand she covered him And built him a mound. With flotsam and with wreckage The shore was all strown; She built of it a cottage, And there she sat down. "Though this be not Africa, Nor yet Carthage town, Deo-gracey," said Zenobia, "That I did not drown!" "That's where the tune changes," interrupted Matthew Henry, clapping his small sunburnt hands together. "You know the song then?" asked Vashti, looking from one to the other.