for no one had
remained to keep bars in their staples. Tanks of last year's rum and
treacle had been flung through the walls, and their odours mingled with
the stench of decomposing men and cattle. The horrid rattle of the
land-crab was almost the only sound in that desolate land. "The Garden
of the Antilles" looked like a putrid swamp, and she had not a beauty on
her.

Alexander turned at a cross-road into a path which led through the
Grange estate to the private burying-ground of the Lyttons. These few
moments taxed his courage more heavily than the ride with the hurricane
had done, and more than once he opened his clenched teeth and half
turned his horse's head. But he went on, and before long he had climbed
to the end of his journey. The west wall of the little cemetery had been
blown out, and the roof of old James Lytton's tomb lay with its debris.
A tree, which evidently had been torn from the earth and flung from a
distance, lay half in and half out of the enclosure. But his mother's
headstone, which stood against the north wall, was undisturbed, although
the mound above her was flat and sodden. The earth had been strong
enough to hold her. Alexander remembered its awful air of finality as it
opened to receive her, then closed over her. What he had feared was that
the burying-ground, which stood on the crest of a hill, would have been
uprooted and scattered over the cane-fields.

He rode on to Christianstadt. There the evidences of the hurricane were
less appalling, for the houses, standing close together, had protected
each other, and only two were unroofed; but everywhere the trees looked
like twisted poles, the streets and gardens were full of rubbish, and
down by the bay the shore was strewn with the wreckage of ships; the
Park behind the Fort was thick with decaying fish, which the blacks were
but just now sweeping out to the water.

After Alexander had ascertained that Mr. Mitchell's house was quite
unharmed, although a neighbour had lost half a roof and been deluged in
consequence, he walked out Company Street to see how it had fared with
Hugh Knox. That worthy gentleman was treating his battered nerves with
weak whiskey and water when he caught sight of Alexander through the
library window. He gave a shout that drew an exasperated groan through
the ceiling, flung open the door, and clasped his beloved pupil in his
arms.

"I knew you were safe, because you are you, although I've been afraid to
ask if