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“It is nectar.”

“I tell you what, Tilly, I am not sure that it wouldn’t be a good thing to be compelled to live here for two or three years. The vegetation shows that we are in a temperate latitude, and I know I can find or raise enough to eat in such a place as this.”

“Why, pa, look there!”

“Where?”

“Over there. Don’t you see that castle?”

“Castle? No! What! Why, yes, it is! Bless my soul, Tilly, the place is inhabited!”

“Who would have thought of finding a building like that on an island in mid-ocean?”

“It is the most extraordinary circumstance, taking it altogether, that ever came under my observation,” said the Professor, looking towards the distant edifice. “So far as I can make out, it is a castle of an early period.”

“Mediæval?”

“Well, not later than the seventh or eighth century, at the farthest. Tilly, I feel as if something remarkable was going to happen.”

“Pa, you frighten me!”

“No, I mean something that will be extraordinarily interesting. I know it. The voice of instinct tells me so. Have you your journal with you?”