The Gauntlet being in ballast, and the tide high, Captain Pomery found plenty of Water in the winding channel, every curve of which he knew to a hair, and steered for at its due moment, winking cheerfully at Billy and me, who stood ready to correct his pilotage.  He had taken in his mainsail, and carried steerage way with mizzen and jib only; and thus, for close upon a mile, we rode up on the tide, scaring the herons and curlews before us, until drawing within sight of a grass-grown quay he let run down his remaining canvas and laid the ketch alongside, so gently that one of the seamen, who had cast a stout fender overside, stepped ashore, and with a slow pull on her main rigging checked and brought her to a standstill.

“Aut Lacedaemonium Tarentum,” said the monk at my shoulder quietly; and, as I stared at him, “Ah, to be sure, this is your Tarentum, is it not?  Yet the words came to me for the sound’s sake only and their so gentle close.  Our voyage has even such an ending.”

“I had best run on,” I suggested, “and warn my father of your coming.”

“It is not necessary.”

“Nevertheless,” I urged, “they can be preparing breakfast for you, up at the house, while you and your friends are making ready to come ashore.”

“We have broken our fast,” he answered; “and we are quite ready, if you will be so good as to guide us.”

He stepped to the hatchways and called down, announcing simply that the voyage was ended:  and in the dusk there I saw monk after monk upheave himself from the straw and come clambering up the ladder; tall monks and short, old monks and young and middle-aged, lean monks and thickset—­but the most of them cadaverous, and all of them yellow with sea-sickness; twenty-eight monks, all barefoot, all tolerably dirty, and all blinking in the fresh sunshine.  When they were gathered, at a sign from one of them—­by dress not distinguishable from his fellows—­all knelt and gave silent thanks for the voyage accomplished.

I could see that Billy Priske was frightened:  for, arising, they rolled their eyes about them like wild animals turned loose in an unfamiliar country, and the whites of their eyes were yellow (so to speak) with seafaring, and their pupils glassy with fever and from the sea’s glare.  But the monk their spokesman touched my arm and motioned me to lead; and, when I obeyed, one by one the whole troop fell into line and followed at his heels.

Thus we went—­I leading, with him and the rest in single file after me—­up by the footpath through the woods, and forth into sunshine again upon the green dewy bracken of the deer-park.  Here my companion spoke for the first time since disembarking.

“Your father, sir,” said he, looking about him and seeming to sniff the morning air, “must be a very rich signor.”

“On the contrary,” I answered, “I have some reason to believe him a poor man.”

He stared down for a moment at his bare feet, and the skirts of his gown wet to the knees with the grasses.