ere a palpitating
pause, and then the blue arms wound around the waving stem--two white
arms clasping, with a passionate caress, the neck of the weed--and, yes!
the lily floating on the white cheek of the pond had been caught by the
strong weed, and with the reacting tide was going out to sea! Ay! the
sailor had won the maiden!

But while the lily rocked hither and thither on the pond, with its blond
leaves and petals of blue, and its pliant stem in danger at every tide,
did the fond mothers watch it from the bank? That they did, thinking of
the time when they were lilies of the pond themselves, with no fears of
danger near. But at last it came, and, like blooming flowers, they swung
to and fro in the rain, dropping a tear or two from their own rosy
leaves--more in dewy sorrow than in fear--and waiting for sunshine;
bending their beautiful heads of roses the while one toward another,
peeping out with their dark violet eyes, and listening, as the wind
shook them, with a tremble of apprehension, and clinging hopefully to
the straight support on which they reclined.

By day and night, in burning sun with not a drop to drink, and in the
sultry night with no morsel of food to eat--through the searing sand in
the streets and lanes, down by the quays--to every vessel in the crowded
harbor--in every hotel and lodging-house in Kingston--up and down
Spanish Town--away off to Port Royal--occasionally going on board the
frigate for gold, then on shore again--in ribald wassail and drunken
dance, gaming hells especially, and low crimping houses, maroon and
negro huts, and wretched haunts of vice--scattering gold like cards,
dice, rum, and water--no end to it--in large yellow drops too--and still
striding on, questioning, gleaming with those revengeful eyes--never
resting brain or body, without drink or meat--went Paul Darcantel.

Oh, Paul, that cowardly villain saw you from the very moment you took
that pinch of snuff out of his blue enameled box--ay, even before, when
you walked your mule slowly up the broken road, while a goaded barb was
curbed back in the gloomy forest till you had passed, with his rider's
finger in his waistcoat pocket. And in all your ceaseless wanderings, by
day and night, that now timid, terror-stricken villain has been
following you; dodging behind corners--under the well-worn cloths of
monte banks--in the back rooms of pulperias--hiding in nests of
infamy--every where and in all places steering clear of yo