of these things, as I looked down into the silent depths of the
gulf, and saw the sparkling veins of granite, and purple masses of slate
gleam with volcanic life and colour. But still I heard the haunting echo
of Monica's voice, in the solitude through which she must lately have
passed, perhaps leaving some message, if I could only know.

Was it merely a fantastic twist of my nerves, or was her spirit calling,
trying to make itself heard and understood?

It was Pilar who broke the spell by a sudden clapping of her hands.
"Andalucia! dear Andalucia!" she cried; and each one of us, subdued and
silenced by the majesty of the scene, started as if waking from sleep.

She was pointing at a stone obelisk, looking at which her father smiled
and raised his hat.

"No more cold," said he; "no more winds to nip our noses. Here's the
dividing line between the north countries and the country of the sun."

Then, as if the obelisk had been the finger of some genie invoking a magic
change, an enchantment blurred the stem features of the landscape. It was
as though the fierce face of an angry giant had been transformed into that
of a beautiful, laughing woman with the sun in her eyes.

The defile opened when we had slipped past a half-hidden mountain hamlet
or two; widened into a valley bright with colour as the jewels on the
spread tail of a peacock; and boat-like, the car rode an undulating sea of
green and azure and gold, that scintillated as if a spray of diamonds were
tossed into air with the speed of our going.

At Santa Elena we were in a Spain I had not seen. At La Carolina we burst
into a world fair and fertile as the Garden of Eden; and I remembered the
Moorish legend that Heaven is built on the blue that hangs over Andalucia.

Hedges of aloe brandished zincen swords and darts; cacti sprawled and
leered along the roadside; set in the vivid green of ripening grain, olive
groves seemed carved from jade; or the bare rosy shoulders of sloping
hillsides turned by contrast their pale tints to tarnished silver. Vines
with young gold leaves trailed the purple earth; avenues of acacias
dripped perfumes; and as the sun leaned towards the west, the quivering
pink light on violet mountains gave to Andalucia the vivid, almost violent
colouring one sees in sensational posters.

Each girl we passed wore a bright flower shining star-like through the
black cloud of her hair. The men had discarded the fur-trimmed Louis XI
caps for the br