is you who do me good," said she. "O Philip, sail as slowly as you
can." But he only sailed farther, instead of more slowly, gliding in
and out among the rocky islands in the light north wind, which, for a
wonder, lasted all that day,--dappling the bare hills of the Isle
of Shadows with a shifting beauty. The tide was in and brimming, the
fishing-boats were busy, white gulls soared and clattered round them,
and heavy cormorants flapped away as they neared the rocks. Beneath the
boat the soft multitudinous jellyfishes waved their fringed pendants, or
glittered with tremulous gold along their pink, translucent sides.
Long lines and streaks of paler blue lay smoothly along the enamelled
surface, the low, amethystine hills lay couched beyond them, and little
clouds stretched themselves in lazy length above the beautiful expanse.
They reached the ruined fort at last, and Philip, surrendering Hope to
others, was himself besieged by a joyous group.

As you stand upon the crumbling parapet of old Fort Louis, you feel
yourself poised in middle air; the sea-birds soar and swoop around you,
the white surf lashes the rocks far below, the white vessels come and
go, the water is around you on all sides but one, and spreads its pale
blue beauty up the lovely bay, or, in deeper tints, southward towards
the horizon line. I know of no ruin in America which nature has so
resumed; it seems a part of the living rock; you cannot imagine it away.

It is a single round, low tower, shaped like the tomb of Cacilia
Metella. But its stately position makes it rank with the vast sisterhood
of wave-washed strongholds; it might be King Arthur's Cornish Tyntagel;
it might be "the teocallis tower" of Tuloom. As you gaze down from its
height, all things that float upon the ocean seem equalized. Look at the
crowded life on yonder frigate, coming in full-sailed before the steady
sea-breeze. To furl that heavy canvas, a hundred men cluster like bees
upon the yards, yet to us upon this height it is all but a plaything for
the eyes, and we turn with equal interest from that thronged floating
citadel to some lonely boy in his skiff.

Yonder there sail to the ocean, beating wearily to windward, a few slow
vessels. Inward come jubilant white schooners, wing-and-wing. There are
fishing-smacks towing their boats behind them like a family of children;
and there are slender yachts that bear only their own light burden. Once
from this height I saw the whole yacht s