quaintance. Of the windows which looked
towards the garden, the blinds were always closed; the single door that
led into it as invariably locked; I bethought me of writing a humble and
most petitionary epistle, setting forth my utter solitude and isolation;
but where were pen and ink and paper to come from? These were luxuries
the Gobernador himself alone possessed. My next thought was more
practicable: it was to deposit each morning upon her basket of fruit a
little bouquet of fresh flowers. But, then, would they ever reach her
hands?--would not the servant purloin and intercept my offering?--ay,
that was to be thought of.

By most assiduous watching, I at last discovered that her bedroom looked
into the garden by a small grated window, almost hidden by the gnarled
branches of a wild fig-tree. This at once afforded me the opportunity I
desired, and up the branches of this I climbed each morning of my life,
to fasten to the bars my little bouquet of flowers.

With what intense expectancy did I return home the first morning of my
experiment! what vacillations of hope and fear agitated me as I came
near the garden, and, looking up, saw, to my inexpressible delight, that
the bouquet was gone! I could have cried for very joy! At last I was no
longer an outcast, forgotten by my fellows. One, at least, knew of my
existence, and possibly pitied and compassionated my desolation.

I needed no more than this to bind me again to the love of life; frail
as was the link, it was enough whereupon to hang a thousand hopes and
fancies, and it suggested matter for cheering thought, where, before,
the wide waste of existence stretched pathless and purposeless before
me. How I longed for that skill by which I might make the flowers the
interpreters of my thoughts! I knew nothing of this, however; I could
but form them into such combinations of color and order as should please
the senses, but not appeal to the heart; and yet I did try to invent a
language, forgetting the while that the key of the cipher must always
remain with myself.

It chanced that one night, when on my rounds outside the village,
I suddenly discovered that I had forgotten the caps for my rifle. I
hastened homeward to fetch them, and entered the garden by a small door
which I had myself made, and of which few were cognizant. It was a night
of bright moonlight; but the wind was high, and drifted large masses
of cloud across the sky, alternately hiding and displaying th