le ahead.

"It's the guns," he shrieked. "Up with you. Cut away the
lashings. Stave down the bulwarks. Let them go."

In the panic there was no stopping to argue or to question. The guns
were freed, and they, too, went hurtling through the air, striking
the rock with a clang. The captain leaped to the helm and put it hard
a-starboard. The ship's pace slackened, she curved gracefully around,
and headed from the threatening coast. "Shake out all sail, lads,
for we're free at last, by God's good grace."

Though trembling and confused, the sailors managed to hoist sail,
and on a gentle wind from the east they left that coast never more to
venture near it. The captain's face lost its knots and seams, by slow
degrees the color of it returned,--a color painted upon it, especially
about the nose, by many winds, much sunshine, and uncounted bottles
of strong waters. He wiped his brow and drew a big breath. "It comes
to me, now," he said. "We've not been bewitched. That hill beyond,
that's robbed us of our guns and anchor, is a magnet,--the biggest
in the world."

In an earthquake, several years later, the magnet-mountain disappeared.

Two Runaways from Manila

The name Corregidor, which stands for mayor, albeit the translation
is corrector, is applied to the gateway to Manila. Thus named it was
a place to inspire a wholesome fear in the breasts of dignitaries,
for on at least two occasions proud and refractory bishops were sent
there in exile to endure a season of correction and repentance. It
was thought to be a desert. In the seventeenth century the treasure
galleon arriving at Manila, after a voyage of months from Mexico,
brought a family from that country. One of the daughters of this house
of Velez was a girl with a bit of human nature in her composition,
for Maria was prone to flirting, and had no affection for sermons. In
order to repress her high spirits and love of mischief, she was sent
by her father to the convent of Santa Clara, which had been founded
in 1621 (a few years before this incident). The parent even hoped
that she might qualify as a nun.

It was not the right convent, for Fray Sanchez, one of the fathers,
who said the offices in the chapel, was a Franciscan friar, young,
handsome, and not an ascetic. The novice was always prompt when he
said mass, and often when her pretty head should have been bowed in
prayer she was peeping over the edge of her breviary, following the
graceful motions