ented like a tube-rose, had a stem as thick
as a poplar, and carried its thousand buds and amber-colored flowers up
eighty feet of broken rock, and planted on every ledge suckers, that
flowered again and filled the air with perfume. Another tree about half
as high was covered with a cascade of snow-white tulips, each as big as a
small flower-pot, and scented like honeysuckle. An aloe, ten feet high,
blossomed in a corner, unheeded among loftier beauties. And at the very
mouth of the fissure a huge banana leaned across, and flung out its vast
leaves, that seemed translucent gold against the sun; under it shone a
monstrous cactus in all her pink and crimson glory, and through the maze
of color streamed the deep blue of the peaceful ocean, laughing, and
catching sunbeams.

Helen leaned against the cliff and quivered with delight, and that deep
sense of flowers that belongs to your true woman.

Hazel feared she was ill.

"Ill?" said she. "Who could be ill here? It is heaven upon earth. Oh, you
dears! Oh, you loves! And they all seemed growing on the sea, and
floating in the sun."

"And it is only one of a dozen such," said Hazel. "If you would like to
inspect them at your leisure, I'll just run to Palm-tree Point; for my
signal is all askew. I saw that as we came along."

Helen assented readily, and he ran off, but left her the provisions. She
was not to wait dinner for him.

Helen examined two or three of the flowery fissures, and found fresh
beauties in each, and also some English leaves, that gave her pleasure of
another kind; and, after she had reveled in the flowers, she examined the
shore, and soon discovered that the rocks which abounded here (though
there were also large patches of clear sand) were nearly all pure coral,
in great variety. Red coral was abundant; and even the pink coral, to
which fashion was just then giving a fictitious value, was there by the
ton. This interested her, and so did some beautiful shells that lay
sparkling. The time passed swiftly; and she was still busy in her
researches, when suddenly it darkened a little, and, looking back, she
saw a white vapor stealing over the cliff, and curling down.

Upon this she thought it prudent to return to the place where Hazel had
left her; the more so as it was near sunset.

The vapor descended and spread and covered sea and land. Then the sun
set; and it was darkness visible. Coming from the south, the sea-fret
caught Hazel sooner and in a les