“Oh, Eugenio will not feel any interest in a person like Miss St. John,
Niece Martha! He belongs to another literary world entirely.”

“I know that; but may not Sara attain to that other world in time? I
hope much from her.”

“Then you will be disappointed, Niece Martha. I am not literary myself,
but I have always noticed that those writers whose friends are always
‘hoping much’ never amount to much; it is the writer who takes his
friends and the world by surprise who has the genius.”

There was a substratum of hard common-sense in Aunt Diana, where my
romantic boat often got aground. It was aground now.

The next morning Eugenio presented himself without waiting for Aunt Di,
and John proposed a walk to the Ponce de Leon Spring in his honor.

“It is almost the only spot you have not visited,” he said to us, “and
Eugenio must see the sweep of a pine-barren.”

“By all means,” replied the poet, “the stretching glades and far
savannas, gemmed with the Southern wild flowers.”

“You have missed the most beautiful flower of all,” said Iris, “‘the
wild sweet princess of far Florida, the yellow jasmine.’”

The Captain was with us, likewise Mokes; but Aunt Diana had sliced in
another young lady to keep the balance even; and away we went through
the town, across the Maria Sanchez Creek, under the tree arches, and out
on to the broad causeway beyond.

“What! _walk_ to Ponce de Leon Spring!” exclaimed the languid St.
Augustine ladies as we passed.

“They evidently look upon Northerners as a species of walking madmen,” I
said, laughing.

“It is a singular fact,” commented Sara, “that country people never walk
if they can help it; they go about their little town and that is all.
City people, on the contrary, walk their miles daily as a matter of
course. You can almost tell whether a young lady is city or country bred
from the mere fact of her walking or not walking.”

“Climate here has something to do with it,” said John, “and also the old
Spanish ideas that ladies should wear satin slippers and take as few
steps as possible. The Minorcans keep up some of the old ideas still.
Courtship is carried on through a window, the maiden within, a rose in
her hair, and the favorite Spanish work in her hand, and the lover
outside leaning on the casement. Not until a formal acceptance has been
given is he allowed to enter the house and rest himself and his
aspirations in a chair.”

“We have adopted English ideas of exercise in New York,” said Eugenio,
“but they have not penetrated far into the interior as yet, and are
utterly unknown south of Mason and Dixon’s line. St. Augustine, however,
is still Spanish, and no one expects the traditional Spanish señorita,
with her delicate slippers, fan, and mantilla, to start out for a
six-mile constitutional--it would not be her style at all. By-the-way, I
saw a beautiful Spanish face leaning from a window on St. George Street
this morning.”

“Yes,” said Mokes, consequentially. “There are two on St. George Street,
two on Charlotte, and one on St. Hypolita. I have taken pains to
trace--er--to trace them out; they like it--er--and I have, I may say,
some experience in outlines and that sort of thing--galleries
abroad--old masters, etc. Paint a little myself.”

“Indeed!” said Eugenio. “Original designs, I suppose?”

Oh no; Mokes left that to the regular profession. They had to do it,
poor fellows--wouldn’t interfere with them.

“Very generous,” said Eugenio.

Yes, Mokes thought it was. But gentlemen of--of fortune, you know, had
their duties--as--as such.

“How _much_ I should like to see your pictures, Mr. Mokes!” said the
poet, assuming an air of deep interest.

The highly flattered Mokes thought that “perhaps--er,” he “might have
one or two sent down by express;” he always liked “to oblige his
friends.”

“Don’t chaff him any more,” whispered John, with a meaning glance toward
Iris.

“What! not that lovely girl!” exclaimed Eugenio, under his breath.

“Two or three millions!” said John.

“Ah!” replied the poet.

On the red bridge Sara paused a moment and stood gazing down the river.
“What a misty look there is away down there over the salt marshes!” she
said, “the boats tipped up on shore, with their slender masts against
the sky. The river is certainly going down to the sea, and yet the
sea-breeze comes from behind me.”

“The Sebastian is nearer the ocean up here than it is down at its
mouth,” said John. “Look across: there is only the North Beach between
us here and the ocean.”

“Between us and Africa, you mean.”

“What is it that attracts you toward Africa, Miss St. John?” asked
Eugenio.

“Antony,” replied Sara, promptly. “Don’t you remember those wonderful
lines written by an Ohio soldier,

    “‘I am dying, Egypt, dying;
      Ebbs the crimson life-tide fast?’”

“Dear me, Miss St. John, I hope you are not taking up _Antony and
Cleopatra_ to the detriment of the time-honored _Romeo and Juliet_!
Romeo is the orthodox lover, pray remember.”

“But I am heterodox,” replied Sara, smiling.

Beyond the river the road led through the deep white sand of Florida.
Iris’s little boots sank ankle deep.

“Take my arm,” said the Captain.

Now taking the arm means more or less, according to the arm and the way
it is offered. The Captain was tall, the Captain was strong, and he had
a way with him. Iris was small, Iris was graceful, and she had a way
with her. To say that from that moment they flirted boundlessly all the
afternoon does not express it. I am sorry to say, also, that John and
the poet openly, and Sara and I tacitly, egged them on. The bullion star
of Mokes had been in the ascendant long enough, we thought. The
Professor had a staff, a trowel, and a large basket for specimens. He
made forays into the thicket, lost himself regularly, and Miss Sharp as
regularly went to the rescue and guided him back.

“How many old tracks there are turning off to the right and the left!” I
said. “Where do they go?”

“The most delightful roads are those that go nowhere,” said Eugenio,
“roads that go out and haze around in the woods just for fun. Who wants
to be always going somewhere?”

“These roads will answer your purpose, then,” said John. “Most of them
go nowhere. They did go out to old military posts once upon a time, in
the Seminole war, but the military posts have disappeared, and now they
go nowhere. They are pretty tracks, some of them, especially the old
Indian entrance to St. Augustine--a trail coming up from the south.”

Turning to the right, we passed through a little nook of verdure,
leaving the sand behind us. “This,” said John, “is a hamak; and if I
have a pet grievance, it is the general use of the word ‘hummock’ in its
place. ‘Hummock’ is an arctic word, meaning to pile up ice; but ‘hamak’
is pure Carib or Appalachian, and signifies a resting or abiding place,
a small Indian farm. There is another kind of soil in Florida which has
the singular name of ‘sobbed land.’ This has a rocky substratum,
impervious to water, four feet below the surface, which holds the
rain-falls as though it--”

“Devoured its own tears,” suggested Eugenio. “But where are your
flowers, good people? Is not this the land of flowers?”

[Illustration: A PINE-BARREN.]

“No,” said John; “that is another mistake. The Spaniards happened to
land here during the Easter season, which they call Pascua Florida, the
flowery Passover, on account of the palms with which their churches are
decorated at that time; and so they named the country from the festival,
and not from the flowers at all. There is not one word said about
flowers in all their voluminous old records--”

“Don’t be statistical, I beg,” interrupted Eugenio. “And are there no
flowers, then?”

“Oh yes,” answered Sara, “little wee blossoms in delicate colors
starring over the ground, besides violets and gold-cups; these are the
yeomanry. The Cherokee roses, the yellow jasmine, and the
Spanish-bayonets, with their sceptres of white blossoms, are the
nobility.”

Presently we came out upon the barren, with its single feathery trees,
its broad sky-sweep, its clear-water ponds, an endless stretch of desert
which was yet no desert, but green and fair. The saw-palmetto grew in
patches, and rustled its stiff leaves as we passed.

“I can’t think of any thing but Spanish ladies looking out between the
sticks of their fans,” remarked Eugenio.

“That’s just like it,” said Iris, and plucking one of the fan-shaped
leaves, she gave the idea a lovely coquettish reality. The Captain
murmured something (he had a way of murmuring). What it was we could not
hear, but then Iris heard, and blushed very prettily. Mokes took the
“other young lady,” the sliced one, and walked on loftily. She went. The
truth is, they generally go with three millions.

“There is something about the barrens that always gives me the feeling
of being far away,” said Sara.

“The old attraction,” replied Eugenio. “‘Over the hills and far away’ is
the dream of all imaginative souls. Do you remember

    “‘Afar in the desert I love to ride,
     With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side?’”

         “‘There is a happy land,
           Far, far away,’”

I sang.

[Illustration: LOU-EE-ZY AND LOW-II-ZY.]

“Yes, that is it,” said John, “and even our old friend ‘Swannee Ribber’
owes his dominion to the fact that he is ‘far, far away.’”

A little trail turned off to a low cabin on the bank of a brook; we saw
some flowers, and wandered that way for a moment. It was the lonely
little home of a freedman, and two children stood in the doorway staring
at us with solemn eyes. We bestowed some pennies, which produced a bob
of a courtesy; then some jokes, which brought out the ivories.

“What are your names, children?” I asked.

“They’s jes Lou-ee-zy and Low-ii-zy,” replied a voice from within-doors.
“They’s twins, and I’s took car’ ob dein allays.”

It was a crippled old auntie who spoke. She told us her story, with long
digressions about “ole massa” and “ole miss.”

“After all, I suspect you were more comfortable in the old times,
auntie,” I said.

“What’s dat to do wid de acquisition ob freedom?” replied the old woman,
proudly. “De great ting is dis yer: Lou-ee-zy is free, and Low-ii-zy is
free! Bot’ ob dem! Bot’ ob dem, ladies!”

“I have never been able to make them confess that they were more
comfortable in the old days, no matter how poor and desolate they may
be,” I said.

“The divine spark in every breast,” replied Eugenio. “But where is the
spring, Hoffman? I like your barren; it smacks of the outlaw and bold
buccaneer, after the trim wheat fields of the North, and there is a
grand sweep of sky overhead. Nevertheless, I own to being thirsty.”

“It is not ordinary thirst,” replied John; “it is the old yearning which
Ponce de Leon always felt when he had come as far as this.”

“He came this way, then, did he?”

“Invariably.”

“If I had been here at the time I should have said, ‘Ponce’ (of course
we should have been intimate enough to call each other by our first
names)--‘Ponce, my good friend, have your spring a little nearer while
you are magically about it!’” And taking off his straw hat the poet
wiped his white forehead, and looked at us with a quizzical expression
in his brilliant eyes.

“It _is_ warm,” confessed Aunt Diana, who, weary and worried, was
toiling along almost in silence. Mokes was nearly out of sight with the
“other young lady;” Iris and the Captain were absorbed in that murmured
conversation so hopeless to outsiders; and Spartan matron though she
was, she had not the courage to climb around after the Professor in
cloth boots that drew like a magnet the vicious cacti of the thicket.
Miss Sharp had leather boots, and climbed valiantly.

At last we came to the place, and filed in through a broken-down fence.
We found a deserted house, an overgrown field, a gully, a pool, and an
old curb of coquina surrounding the magic spring.

“I wonder if any one was ever massacred here?” observed Sara, looking
around.

“The Fountain of Youth,” declaimed John, ladling out the water. “Who
will drink? Centuries ago the Indians of Cuba came to these shores to
seek the waters of immortality, and as they never returned, they are
supposed to be still here somewhere enjoying a continued cherubic
existence. Father Martyn himself affirms in his letter to the Pope that
there is a spring here the water thereof being drunk straightway maketh
the old young again. Ladies and gentlemen, the original and only Ponce
de Leon Spring! Who will drink?”

We all drank; and then there was a great silence.

“Well,” said the poet, deliberately, looking around from his seat on the
curb, “take it altogether, that shanty, those bushes, the pig-sty, the
hopeless sandy field, the oozing pool, and this horrible tepid water,
drawn from, to say the least, a dubious source--a very dubious
source--it is, all in all, _about_ the ugliest place I ever saw!”

There was a general shout.

“We have suspected it in our hearts all winter,” said the “other young
lady;” “but not one of us dared put the thought into words, as it was
our only walk.”

The poet staid with us a day or two longer, and charmed us all with his
delightful, winsome humor.

“Do you know, I really love that man,” I announced.

“So do I,” said Iris.

“That is nothing,” said John; “he is ‘the poet whom poets love,’ you
know.”

“But we are not poets, Mr. Hoffman.”

“We are only plebes, and plebes may very well love what poets love, I
think.”

“But it does not always follow,” I said.

“By no means. In this case, however, it is true. All love Eugenio, both
poets and plebes.”

“He is the Mendelssohn of poets,” I said; “and, besides that, he is the
only person I ever met who reminded me of my idea of Mendelssohn
personally--an idea gathered from those charming ‘letters’ and the
_Auchester_ book.”

The next evening Eugenio and Sara went off for a stroll on the sea-wall;
two hours later Sara came back to our room, laid a blank book on the
table, and threw herself into a chair.

“Tired?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“It is a lovely evening.”

“Yes.”

“Did you have a pleasant time?”

“Yes.”

I knew that blank book well; it contained all Sara’s printed stories and
verses; my eyes glanced toward it.

“Yes,” said Sara; “there it is! I gave it to him yesterday. I knew he
would read it through, and I knew also that I could read his real
opinion in those honest eyes of his.”

“Well?”

“There isn’t a thing in it worth the paper it is written on.”

“Oh, Sara!”

“And what is more, I have known it myself all along.”

“Is it possible he said so?”

“He? Never. He said every thing that was generous and kind and cordial
and appreciative; and he gave me solid assistance, too, in the way of
advice, and suggestive hints worth their weight in gold to an isolated
beginner like myself. But--”

“But?”

“Yes, ‘but.’ Through it all, Martha, I could see the truth written in
the sky over that old look-out tower; we were on the glacis under that
tower all the time, and I never took my eyes off from it. That tower is
my fate, I feel sure.”

“What do you mean? Your fate?”

“I don’t know exactly myself. But, nevertheless, in some way or other
that look-out tower is connected with my fate--the fate of poor Sara St.
John.”

In John Hoffman’s room at the same time another conversation was going
on.

JOHN. “Has she genius, do you think?”

EUGENIO. “Not an iota.”

JOHN. “What do you mean, you iron-hearted despot? Has the girl no
poetry in her?”

[Illustration: UNITED STATES BARRACKS--A DRESS PARADE.]

EUGENIO. “Plenty; but not of the kind that can express itself in
writing. Sara St. John has poetry, but she ought not to try to write it;
she is one of the kind to--”

JOHN. “Well, what?”

EUGENIO. “Live it.”

Eugenio went, leaving real regret behind. The crowd of tourists began to
diminish, the season was approaching its end, and Aunt Diana gathered
her strength for a final contest.

“We are not out of the wilderness yet, it seems,” said Sara to me, in
her mocking voice. “Mokes, the Captain, the Professor, and the
Knickerbocker, and nothing settled! How is this, my countrymen?”

Our last week came, and the Captain and Iris continued their murmured
conversations. In vain Aunt Diana, with the vigilance of a Seminole,
contested every inch of the ground; the Captain outgeneraled her, and
Iris, with her innocent little ways, aided and abetted him. Aunt Di
never made open warfare; she believed in strategy; through the whole she
never once said, “Iris, you must not,” or wavered for one moment in her
charming manner toward the Captain. But the pits she dug for that young
man, the barriers she erected, the obstructions she cast in his way,
would have astonished even Osceola himself. And all the time she had
Mokes to amuse, Mokes the surly, Mokes the wearing, Mokes who was even
beginning to talk: openly of going!--yes, absolutely going! One day it
came to pass that we all went up to the barracks, to attend a dress
parade. The sun was setting, the evening gun sounded across the inlet,
the flash of the light-house came back as if in answer, the flag was
slowly lowered, and the soldiers paraded in martial array--artillery,
“the poetry of the army,” as the romantic young ladies say--“the
red-legged branch of the service,” as the soldiers call it.

“What a splendid-looking set of officers!” exclaimed Iris, as the tall
figures in full uniform stood motionless in the sunset glow. “But who is
that other young officer?”

“The lieutenant,” said the “other young lady.”

“He is very handsome,” said Iris, slowly.

“Yes, very. But he is a provoking fellow. Nobody can do any thing with
him.”

“Can’t they?” said Iris, warming to the encounter. (Iris rather liked a
difficult subject.) Then, “Oh, I forgot we were going so soon,” she
added, with a little sigh. “But I wonder why the Captain never brought
him to call upon us?”

“Simply because he won’t be brought,” replied the “other young lady.”

“I will tell you what he is like, Iris,” I said, for I had noticed the
young soldier often. “He is like the old Indian description of the St.
Johns River: ‘It hath its own way, is alone, and contrary to every
other.’”

Review over, we went on to the post cemetery, beyond the barracks, the
Captain accompanying us, glittering in gold-lace.

“Were there any encounters in or near St. Augustine during the late
war?” began Aunt Di, in a determined voice. Time was short now, and she
had decided to cut the Gordian knot of Mokes; in the mean time the
Captain _should not_ get to Iris unless it was over her dead body.

“No,” replied Antinous. “The nearest approach to it was an alarm, the
gunners under arms, and the woods shelled all night, the scouts in the
morning bringing in the mangled remains of the enemy--two Florida cows.”

“A charmingly retired life you must lead here,” pursued Aunt Di; “the
news from the outside world does not rush in to disturb your peaceful
calm.”

No, the Captain said, it did not rush much. Four weeks after President
Fillmore’s death they had received their orders to lower the flag and
fire funeral guns all day, which they did, to the edification of the
Minorcans, the Matanzas River, and the Florida beach generally.

The military cemetery was a shady, grassy place, well tended, peaceful,
and even pleasant. A handsome monument to all the soldiers and officers
who fell during the long, hard, harassing Seminole war stood on one
side, and near it were three low massive pyramids covering the remains
of Major Dade and one hundred and seven soldiers, massacred by Osceola’s
band.

[Illustration: MILITARY CEMETERY.]

“There is a dramatic occurrence connected with this story,” said Miss
Sharp, sentimentally. “It seems that this gallant Major Dade and the
other young officers attended a ball here in St. Augustine the evening
before the battle, dancing nearly all night, and then riding away at
dawn, with gay adieux and promises to return soon. That very morning,
before the sun was high in heaven, they were all dead men! So like the
‘Battle of Waterloo,’ you remember:

    ‘There was a sound of revelry by night,
     And Belgium’s capital had gathered then
     Her beauty and her chivalry.’

I do not think this incident is generally known, however.”

“No, I don’t think it is,” replied John; “for as Major Dade and his
command were coming up from Key West and Tampa Bay, on the west side of
the State, and had just reached the Withlacoochee River when they met
their fate, they must have traveled several hundred miles that night,
besides swimming the St. Johns twice, to attend the ball and return in
time for the battle. However,” he added, seeing the discomfiture of the
governess, “I have no doubt they would have been very glad to have
attended it had it been possible, and we will let it go as one of those
things that ‘might have been,’ as I said the other day to a young lady
who, having been quite romantic over the ‘Bravo’s Lane,’ was disgusted
to find that it had nothing at all to do with handsome operatic
scoundrels in slouch hats and feathers, but was so called after a worthy
family here named Bravo.”

The Professor now began to rehearse the Dade story; indeed, he gave us
an abstract of the whole Florida war. Aunt Diana professed herself much
interested, and leaned on the Captain’s arm all the time. Miss Sharp
took notes.

“Come,” whispered Sara, “let us go back and sit on the sea-wall.”

“Why?” I said, for I rather liked watching the Captain’s impalement.

“Martha Miles,” demanded Sara, “do you think--do you really think that I
am going either to stand or stand through another massacre?”

The next morning I was summoned to Aunt Di by a hasty three-cornered
note, and found her in a darkened room, with a handkerchief bound around
her head.

“A headache, Aunt Di?”

“Yes, Niece Martha, and worse--a heartache also,” replied a muffled
voice.

“What is the trouble?”

“Adrian Mokes has gone!”

“Gone?”

“Yes, this morning.”

“Off on that hunting expedition?”

“No,” replied Aunt Diana, sadly; “he has gone, never to return.”

I took a seat by the bedside, for I knew Aunt Di had a story to tell.
Now and then she did let out her troubles to me, and then seemed to feel
the better for it, and ready to go on for another six months. I was a
sort of safety-valve for the high pressure of her many plans.

“You know all I have done for Iris,” she began, “the care I have
bestowed upon her. Unhappy child! she has thrown aside a princely
fortune with that frivolity which she inherits from her father’s family.
My dear sister Clementina had no such traits.”

“Did she really refuse him, then?”

“No; even that comfort was denied to me,” said poor Aunt Di; “it would
have been something, at any rate. But no; her conduct has been such that
he simply announced to me that he had decided to take a leisurely trip
around the world, and afterward he might spend a year or so in England,
where the society was suited to his tastes--no shop-keepers, and that
sort of thing.”

“Happy England!” I said; but Aunt Di went on with her lamentations. “He
certainly admired Iris, and Iris has certainly encouraged him for
months. It is all very well to talk about romance, but Iris is an
extravagant little thing, and would be wretched as a poor man’s wife;
even _you_ can not deny that, Niece Martha” (I could not, and did not).
“Mokes would have suited her very well in the long-run, and now, by her
own foolishness, she has lost him forever. I must confess I felt sick at
heart, to say nothing of being chilled to the bone sitting on that damp
stone.”

“And where were you then?”

“Well, to tell the truth, I thought I would hint a little something to
Mokes--delicately, of course--and, as we were walking to and fro on the
sea-wall, I proposed strolling into the demi-lune.”

“That demi-lune!” I exclaimed.

“Yes; it is quite retired, you know, and I had never seen it.”

That demi-lune!

But that was not all I had to lay up against that venerable and
mysterious outlying fortification. The next afternoon I myself strolled
up there, and passing by the two dragons, their two houses, and the
supply of mutton hanging up below, I climbed the old stairway, and
turning the angle, sat down on the grass to rest a while. I had a new
novel, and leaning back comfortably against the parapet, I began to
read; but the warm sunshine lulled me before I knew it into one of those
soothing after-dinner naps so dear to forty years. The sound of voices
woke me. “No; Miss Miles is superficial, not to say flippant.”

(“Decidedly, listeners never hear any good of themselves,” I thought;
“but I can’t show myself now, of course, without making matters worse.
If they should come up farther, I can be sound asleep.” For the voice
came from the little hidden stairway, and belonged unmistakably to our
solemn Professor.)

“And Miss St. John is decidedly overbearing,” continued our learned
friend.

“It is only too true,” sighed the voice of the governess. “But those are
the faults of the feminine mind when undisciplined by regular mental
training.”

“I have noticed, however, one mind” (and here the Professor’s voice took
a tender tone)--“one mind, Miss Sharp, whose workings seem to follow my
own, one mind in which I can see an interest, veiled, of course, as is
seemly, but still plainly discernible to the penetrative eye--an
interest in my Great Work, now in process of compilation. My emotional
nature has, I fear, been somewhat neglected in the cultivation of my
intellectual faculties, but there is still time for its development, I
think.”

Miss Sharp, in a gentle, assenting murmur, thought there was.

(“So it has come about at last,” I said to myself; “and very well suited
they are, too.”)

“This mind might be of assistance to me in many ways,” continued the
Professor. “I could mould it to my own. And I can not let the present
happy occasion pass without disclosing to you, my dear Miss Sharp, the
state of my feelings. Although youthful, Miss Carew--”

“Iris!” I repeated, under my breath.

“Iris!” ejaculated the governess.

“Yes, Iris, if I may use the gentle name,” said the Professor.

But I would not let him proceed; I felt for that woman down stairs as
though she had been a man and a brother, and I was determined to save
her from the rest. I threw my book and a great piece of rock over the
side of that perfidious old demi-lune, the startled Professor rushed up
the stairs, and there I was, innocently waking up, and regretting that
the wind had blown the new volume off the parapet. I took that man’s
arm, and I walked him home, and I never stopped talking one instant
until I had masked the retreat of the governess up stairs to her own
room; and then I went back to Hospital Street and told Sara.

“No doubt she is sitting there now, surrounded by her relics, the
vicious-looking roots, the shells, the lumps of coquina, the spiny
things, and the bone,” said Sara, laughing.

“Don’t laugh, Sara; it is too real. She liked that man.”

“So much the worse for her, then,” replied my companion. “She had better
tear out her heart and throw it to the dogs at once.”

When Sara answered me after that fashion, I generally let her alone.

“Aunt Diana is really going to-morrow,” I said, the next evening, as
John Hoffman and I stood leaning on the Plaza railing, waiting for the
mail.

“Yes; shall you go also?”

“No; we have decided to remain another week, Sara and I. But I am really
surprised; I thought Iris would carry the day; she was determined to
stay longer.”

“I think I can account for that,” said John, smiling. “We were walking
together last evening in the moonlight on the sea-wall, and, happening
to stroll into the demi-lune--”

“Oh, that demi-lune!”

“Yes, that demi-lune. There we found the Captain.”

“The Captain?”

“The Captain. But not alone. Miss Arabella--Miss Van Amsterdam was with
him!”

Now Miss Van Amsterdam was a beauty and an heiress.

The next morning we bade farewell to the departing half of our party.
“Do you think that impervious old Professor will try it again between
here and New York?” I said, as we strolled back from the little dépôt.

“I doubt it,” answered Sara. “He is the kind that goes in ankle deep,
and then hesitates over the final plunge. But probably all the rest of
his life he will cherish the delusion that he had only to speak, and he
will intimate as much to his cronies over a temperate and confidential
glass of whisky on winter nights.”

“After all, Miss Sharp is worth twenty Professors. How silently and even
smilingly she bore her fate! Iris, now, pouted openly over the Captain’s
desertion.”

“She will forget all about it before she is half way to Tocoi, and there
will be a new train of admirers behind her before the steamer enters the
Savannah harbor,” said Sara, smiling.

“Do you know who has been the real heroine of the romance of these last
weeks, Sara?”

“Who?”

“The demi-lune!”

Our one remaining week rolled its hours swiftly along. Every morning the
Sabre-boy began the day by ringing his great bell, beginning on the
ground-floor, then up the stairs, a salvo in our little entry-way, a
flurry around the corner, and a long excursion down the gallery, with a
salute to all outdoors on the rear balcony; then counter-march, ringing
all the time, back to the second-story stairs, up the stairway, and a
tremendous clanging at the three blue doors; then, face about, and over
the whole route again down to the ground-floor, where a final flourish
in jig time always brought the sleepy idea that he was dancing a
double-shuffle of triumph in conclusion.

“I don’t know which is the worst,” said Sara, “the dogs that
bark all night, the roosters that crow all day, the Sabre and
his morning clanging, or the cathedral chimes, those venerable and
much-written-about relics that ring in the hours like a fire-alarm of
cow-bells gone mad.”

“Do you know that to-morrow will be Easter?” I said, when we had but two
days left. “We must ask Mr. Hoffman to take us out this evening to hear
the Minorcans sing; to-morrow we will go to the Episcopal church, and
then, on Monday, ho! for the bonny North.”

“Very bonny!” said Sara.

“Do you agree to the programme, mademoiselle?”

“All save the church-going.”

“We are not Episcopalians, I know, but on Easter-Sunday--”

“Oh, it isn’t that, Martha. I don’t want to go to church at all. I am
not in the mood.”

“But, Sara, my dear--”

“Yes, and Sara, my dear! Religion is for two classes--the happy and the
resigned. I belong to neither. I am lost out of the first, and I haven’t
yet found the second. I took this journey to please you, Martha. I don’t
blame you; it was all chance; but--You think you know all my life. You
know nothing about it. Martha, I was once engaged to John Hoffman.”

“What! engaged?”

“Yes, for six short months. But it was ten years ago, and I was only
eighteen. He had forgotten both it and me, as I could see by his face
when you first introduced him on that New York steamer. I am only one of
a succession, I presume,” continued Sara, in a bitter tone. (I thought
it very likely, but did not say so.) “I was at home up in the mountains
then, and he came that way on a hunting expedition. It was the old, old
story, and I was so happy! I knew little and cared less about his social
position. I was educated, therefore I was his peer. But he was stern,
and I was proud; he was unyielding, and I rebellious; he wished to rule,
and I would obey no one, although I would have given him freely the
absolute devotion of every breath had he not demanded it. We parted,
still up in the mountains, where he had lingered for my sake, and I had
never seen him since that day until, when fairly out at sea, he appeared
on the deck of that steamer. He took the initiative immediately with his
calm politeness, and I was not to be outdone. I flatter myself that not
one of you suspected that we had ever met before. And now, Martha, not
one word, please. There is nothing to say. We shall soon be parted
again, very likely for another ten years, as he does not return North
with us. Do not fancy that I am unhappy about it. I am like Esther in
_Bleak House_, when, after that unwished-for and unpleasant offer of
marriage, she nevertheless found herself weeping as she had not done
since the days when she buried the dear old doll down in the garden. It
is only that the old chords are stirred, Martha dear; nothing more.”

[Illustration: EASTER-EVEN SERENADE.]

When, late in the evening, John sent up word that he was waiting for us,
I hesitated; but Sara rose and said, “Come,” in her calm, every-day
manner, and I went.

“What will it be like, Mr. Hoffman?” I said, as soon as we reached the
street, in order to make talk.

“Principally singing,” he replied, “according to an old custom of the
Minorcans. On Easter-even the young men assemble with musical
instruments, and visit the houses of all their friends. Before they
begin singing they tap on the shutter, and if they are welcome there is
an answering tap within. Then follows the long hymn they call
_Fromajardis_, always the same seven verses, with a chorus after each
verse, all in the Minorcan dialect. Next comes a recitative soliciting
the customary gifts, a bag is held under the window, and the people of
the house open the shutter, and drop into it eggs, cheese, cakes, and
other dainties, while the young men acknowledge their bounty with a
song, and then depart.”

We followed the singers for an hour, listening to the ancient song,
which sounded sweetly through the narrow streets in the midnight
stillness. My two companions talked on as usual, but I could not. I was
haunted by that picture of ten years ago.

Easter-Sunday morning I went to church alone; Sara would not go with me.
John Hoffman sat near me. I mentioned it when I returned home.

“I hate such religion as his,” said Sara. She was lying on the couch,
with her defiant eyes fixed on the blank wall opposite.

“Dear child,” I said, “do not speak in that tone. It is ten years since
you knew him, and indeed I do think he is quite earnest and sincere. No
doubt he has changed--”

“He has not changed,” interrupted Sara; “he is the same cold, hard,
proud--”

Her voice ceased, and looking up, I saw that she had turned her face to
the wall, and was silently weeping.

In the evening I begged her to come with me to the Sunday-school
festival. “It will do you good to see the children, and hear them sing,”
I said.

She went passively; she had regained her composure, and moved about,
pale and calm.

The church stood on the Plaza; it was small, but beautiful and complete,
with chancel and memorial windows of stained glass. Flowers adorned it,
intertwined with the soft cloudy gray moss, a profusion of blossoms
which could not be equaled in any Northern church, because of its very
carelessness. Not the least impressive incident, at least to Northern
eyes, was the fact that the ranks of the children singing, “Onward,
Christian soldiers,” were headed by an officer in the United States
uniform, the colonel commanding the post, who was also the
superintendent of the Sunday-school. And when, in reading his report,
the superintendent bowed his head in acknowledgment of the rector’s
cordial aid and sympathy, those who knew that the rector had been
himself a soldier all through those four long years, and fighting, too,
on the other side, felt their hearts stirred within them to see the two
now meeting as Christian soldiers, bound together in love for Christ’s
kingdom, while around them, bearing flower-crowned banners, stood
children both from the North and from the South, to whom the late war
was as much a thing of the dead past as the Revolution of seventy-six.

As we came out of the church the rising moon was shining over Anastasia
Island, lighting up the inlet with a golden path.

“Let us go up once more to the old fort,” whispered Sara, keeping me in
the deep shadow of the trees as John Hoffman passed by, evidently
seeking us.

“Alone?”

“Yes; there are two of us, and it will be quite safe, for the whole town
is abroad in the moonlight. Do content me, Martha. I want to stand once
more on that far point of the glacis under my look-out tower. That tower
is my fate, you know. Come; it will be the last time.”

We walked up the sea-wall and out on to the glacis, with the light-house
flashing and fading opposite; the look-out tower rose high and dark
against the sky. Feeling wearied, I sat down and leaned my head against
one of the old cannon; but Sara went out to the far point, and gazed up
at the look-out.

“My fate!” she murmured; “my fate!”

A quick step sounded on the stone; from the other side, leaping over the
wall, came John Hoffman; he did not see me as I sat in the shadow, but
went out on to the point where the solitary figure stood looking up at
the ruined tower.

“Sara,” he said, taking her hand, “shall we go back to ten years ago?”

[Illustration: THE LOOK-OUT TOWER.]

And Fate, in the person of the old watch-tower, let a star shine out
through her ruined windows as a token that all was well.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Ancient City, by Constance Fenimore Woolson