t and foreign appearance; in the
dried-up moat, the drawbridges, the massive arched entrance, dark
under-ways and dungeons.

"Papa," said Elsie, "it's a dreadful place, and very, very old, isn't
it?"

"Yes," he answered; "it was probably begun in 1565. About how long ago
was that?"

"More than three hundred years," she returned after a moment's
thought. "Oh, that is a long, long while!"

"Yes," he said, "a very long while, and we may be very thankful that
our lives were given us in this time rather than in that; for it was a
time of ignorance and persecution."

"Yes, yes, ignorance and persecution;" the words came in sepulchral
tones from the depths of the nearest dungeon, "here have I lain for
three hundred years with none to pity or help. Oh, 'tis a weary while!
Shall I never, never escape?"

"Oh, papa," cried Elsie in tones of affright, and clinging to his
hand, "how dreadful! Can't we help him out?"

"I don't think there is anyone in there, daughter," the captain said
in reassuring tones, her Uncle Harold adding, with a slight laugh,
"And if there is he must surely be pretty well used to it by this
time."

All their little company had been startled at first and felt a thrill
of horror at thought of such misery, but now they all laughed and
turned to Cousin Ronald, as if saying surely it was his doing.

"Yes," he said, "the voice was mine; and thankful we may be that those
poor victims of such hellish cruelty have long, long since been
released from their pain."

"Oh, I am glad to know that," exclaimed Elsie with a sigh of relief;
"but please let's go away from here, for I think it's a dreadful
place."

"Yes," said her father, "we have seen it all now and will try to find
something pleasanter to look at." And with that they turned and left
the old fort.

Captain Raymond and his little company, feeling in no haste to
continue their journey, lingered for some time in St. Augustine and
its neighborhood. One day they visited an island where some friends
were boarding. It was a very pretty place. There were several cottages
standing near together amid the orange groves, one of them occupied by
the proprietor--a finely educated Austrian physician--and his wife,
the others by the boarders. The party from the _Dolphin_ were much
interested in the story of these people told them by their friend.

"The doctor," he said, "had come over to America before our Civil War,
and was on the island when Union troops c