kiss her. Yet she was no more than a silly bird. But--ye knew this?' He
looked at their smiling faces.

'We weren't laughing at you,' said Una. 'That must have been a parrot.
It's just what Pollies do.'

'So we learned later. But here is another marvel. The Yellow Man, whose
name was Kitai, had with him a brown box. In the box was a blue bowl
with red marks upon the rim, and within the bowl, hanging from a fine
thread, was a piece of iron no thicker than that grass stem, and as
long, maybe, as my spur, but straight. In this iron, said Witta, abode
an Evil Spirit which Kitai, the Yellow Man, had brought by Art Magic out
of his own country that lay three years' journey southward. The Evil
Spirit strove day and night to return to his country, and therefore,
look you, the iron needle pointed continually to the South.'

'South?' said Dan suddenly, and put his hand into his pocket.

'With my own eyes I saw it. Every day and all day long, though the ship
rolled, though the sun and the moon and the stars were hid, this blind
Spirit in the iron knew whither it would go, and strained to the South.
Witta called it the Wise Iron, because it showed him his way across the
unknowable seas.' Again Sir Richard looked keenly at the children. 'How
think ye? Was it sorcery?'

'Was it anything like this?' Dan fished out his old brass
pocket-compass, that generally lived with his knife and key-ring. 'The
glass has got cracked, but the needle waggles all right, sir.'

The knight drew a long breath of wonder. 'Yes, yes! The Wise Iron shook