at dashing breakers than if we
were viewing it under the light of the brightest day.

With the attendant symphony of this deep shrouded sea, we reached San
Diego.

X

San Diego.--The Bathing-House.--Alarming Disappearance.--The Mystery
Solved.--Carriage Drive to Mission Cliffs.--Coronado Beach.--The
Museum.--The Hotel.--High Fog.

Our ride of four hours from Los Angeles to San Diego was rather warm,
and after our arrival we cared to do little more than lounge about the
station in the evening. Near by was a most inviting bathing-house,
beautifully fitted up with all sorts of appliances for comfort, not the
least of these being a superb swimming-pool, whose tempered waters were
sending to us insinuating invitations to take a good plunge and enjoy
the charms of their dark, silent depths. It was too soon after eating,
and we put it all off until next day.

When we men folk returned to our car from the adjacent bath-house, a
feeling of gloom and melancholy settled down upon us. The "Lucania" was
silent and lonely, save for the servants. Not another soul was visible.
The ladies had all disappeared!

Here was an alarming state of affairs. Those who had wives, were as
though they had them not, and those who had not wives, were as though
they had. We were all alike disturbed and miserable at the unaccountable
absence of our better halves. What had become of them? We seemed to be
quite on the outskirts of San Diego. The wide streets, stretching away
in darkness, looked terrible and forbidding. Who could tell what
desperado might not have made away with them? It would be a mere matter
of a sudden stoop down from a horse, perhaps, a seizure by a pair of
strong arms, a wild ride over the boundless plain, and misery would
settle down upon us as another mysterious disappearance had to be
recorded, and remain possibly forever unexplained. We called a council
of war, so to speak. We determined to investigate, and boldly plunged
into the unknown town in search of our lost ones. Every man we met had
the possibilities in him, to our excited imaginations, of a double-dyed
cut-throat; every saloon was a gate of Hades; but we bravely pushed on.
We found ourselves soon in rather an attractive street. Shops were gay
with life. The ever-present electric lamps gave us their cold glitter
and their fantastic shadows, until at last, joyful sight, we saw all
our ladies shopping to their hearts' content in a Chinese curio shop,
where a