lack walls of Huevos--a gate even grander,
though not as narrow, as that of Monos; and the Umbrella Rock,
capped with Matapalo and Cactus, and night-blowing Cereus, dim in
the dusk. And now we were outside. The roar of the surf, the
tumble of the sea, the rush of the trade-wind, told us that at once.
Out in the great sea, with Grenada, and kind friends in it, ahead;
not to be seen or reached till morning light. But we looked astern
and not ahead. We could see into and through the gap in Huevos,
through which we had tried to reach the Guacharo cave. Inside that
notch in the cliffs must be the wooded bay, whence we picked up the
shells among the fallen leaves and flowers. From under that dark
wall beyond it the Guacharos must be just trooping out for their
nightly forage, as they had trooped out since--He alone who made
them knows how long. The outline of Huevos, the outline of Monos,
were growing lower and grayer astern. A long ragged haze, far
loftier than that on the starboard quarter, signified the Northern
Mountains; and far off on the port quarter lay a flat bank of cloud,
amid which rose, or seemed to rise, the Cordillera of the Main, and
the hills where jaguars lie. Canopus blazed high astern, and
Fomalhaut below him to the west, as if bidding us a kind farewell.
Orion and Aldebaran spangled the zenith. The young moon lay on her
back in the far west, thin and pale, over Cumana and the Cordillera,
with Venus, ragged and red with earth mist, just beneath. And low
ahead, with the pointers horizontal, glimmered the cold pole-star,
for which we were steering, out of the summer into the winter once
more. We grew chill as we looked at him; and shuddered, it may be,
cowered for a moment, at the thought of 'Niflheim,' the home of
frosts and fogs, towards which we were bound.

However, we were not yet out of the Tropics. We had still nearly a
fortnight before us in which to feel sure there was a sun in heaven;
a fortnight more of the 'warm champagne' atmosphere which was giving
fresh life and health to us both. And up the islands we went,
wiser, but not sadder, than when we went down them; casting wistful
eyes, though, to windward, for there away--and scarcely out of
sight--lay Tobago, to which we had a most kind invitation; and
gladly would we have looked at that beautiful and fertile little
spot, and have pictured to ourselves Robinson Crusoe and Man Friday
pacing along