"No, 'tis a split one." The pens were old, and had lain with the ink dry upon them ever since the outbreak of the Dutch War.

The two men were half a minute in finding a couple that would write.

Then Captain Runacles turned the hour-glass abruptly; and for an hour there was no sound in the pavilion garden but the scratching of quills, the murmur of pigeons on the roof, and the creaking of the gilded vane above them..