The sheets, with the aid of the broom handles and sundry wooden clothes pegs, which Andromache managed to secure by a barefooted expedition to the wash house, made a splendid cave, but the triumphant discovery of the deserters by the soldiers was a little noisy, and the mother of the Four coming unexpectedly on the scene, wisely chose the lesser of two evils, and turned them all out of doors quite early in the afternoon while the soft wind was still blowing,--the soft sweet sea "batti"[14] that makes a swish, swish in the pine branches and shakes down the geranium petals from the stone vases on the terrace; that blows coolly in one's face while all the grown-ups are stupidly lying down for afternoon sleeps. The Four and Pavlo tore madly up the hill and, throwing themselves down on the pine needles under the trees, graciously signified to Chryseis that she "might tell stories." So the long fair hair was tossed back, the eyebrows were puckered for a moment, and then the quick little voice began:-- "There was once upon a time a dryad who lived in a great big tree...." Good old Kerberos had allowed Nikias to make a pillow of his soft black body, Philos lay curled up with his nose between his paws, and Deko stretched out his forelegs as far as they would stretch, making a prodigious curve in the middle of his back; then suddenly righting himself he sat back on his haunches, twitched his pointed ears backwards and forwards and prepared to listen with the rest. Over their heads the "batti" made a soft roar as of the sea, in the pine branches the fir cones cracked in the heat, and far away over the Narrow Beach there were white-tipped waves on the open sea, that made Andromache whisper to Pavlo, "It will not be too hot later on; they will let us go to the Monastery." It was glorious! glorious! glorious! Certainly the Four had no words then to describe how they loved it all. Since then, Iason has turned some of the glory of those days into verse, and those who read it, feel the warm scent of the pine, the note of the tettix, and the blue of that sea, but he and the other three know that only when colour-words are invented can the real beauty of those sights and sounds be expressed! IV