CHAPTER XI. — “GLORIA—IN EXCELSIS!”
The King and Queen, followed by their suite and their guests, walked leisurely off the pier, and down a well-made road, sparkling with crushed sea-shells and powdered coral, towards a group of tall trees and green grass which they perceived a little way ahead of them. There was a soothing quietness everywhere,—save for the singing of birds and the soft ripple of the waves on the sandy shore, it was a silent land:
“In which it seemed always afternoon—
All round the coast the languid air did swoon—
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.”
The Queen paused once or twice to look around her; she was vaguely touched and charmed by the still beauty of the scene.
“It is very lovely!” she said, more to herself than to any of her companions; “The world must have looked something like this in the first days of creation,—so unspoilt and fresh and simple!”
The Countess Amabil, walking with Sir Walter Langton, glanced coquettishly at her cavalier and smiled.
“It is idyllic!” she said;—“A sort of Arcadia without Corydon or Phyllis! Do all the inhabitants go to sleep or disappear in the daytime, I wonder?”
“Not all, I imagine,” replied Sir Walter; “For here comes one, though, judging from the slowness of his walk, he is in no haste to welcome his King!”
The personage he spoke of was indeed approaching, and all the members of the Royal party watched his advance with considerable curiosity. He was tall and upright in bearing, but as he came nearer he was seen to be a man of great age, with a countenance on which sorrow and suffering had left their indelible traces. There were furrows on that face which tears had hollowed out for their swifter flowing, and the high intellectual brow bore lines and wrinkles of anxiety and pain, which were the soul’s pen-marks of a tragic history. He was attired in simple fisherman’s garb of rough blue homespun, and when he was within a few paces of the King, he raised his cap from his curly silver hair with an old-world grace and deferential courtesy. Sir Roger de Launay went forward to meet him and to explain the situation.
“His Majesty the King,” he said, “has wished to make a surprise visit to his people of The Islands,—and he is here in person with the Queen. Can you oblige him with an escort to the principal places of interest?”
The old man looked at him with a touch of amusement and derision.
“There are no places here of interest to a King,” he said; “Unless a poor man’s house may serve for his curious comment! I am not his Majesty’s subject—but I live under his protection and his laws,—and I am willing to offer him a welcome, since there is no one else to do so!”
He spoke with a refined and cultured accent, and in his look and bearing evinced the breeding of a gentleman.
“And your name?” asked Sir Roger courteously.
“My name is Réné Ronsard,” he replied. “I was shipwrecked on this coast years ago. Finding myself cast here by the will of God, here I have remained!”
As he said this, Sir Roger remembered what he had casually heard at times about the ‘life-philosopher’ who had built for himself a dwelling on The Islands out of the timbers of wrecked vessels. This must surely be the man! Delighted at having thus come upon the very person most likely to provide some sort of diversion for their Majesties, and requesting Ronsard to wait at a distance for a moment, he hastened back to the King and explained the position. Whereupon the monarch at once advanced with alacrity, and as he approached the venerable personage who had offered him the only hospitality he was likely to receive in this part of his realm, he extended his hand with a frank and kindly cordiality. Réné Ronsard accepted it with a slight but not over-obsequious salutation.
“We owe you our thanks,” said the King, “for receiving us thus readily, and without notice; which is surely the truest form of hospitable kindness! That we are strangers here is entirely our own fault, due to our own neglect of our Island subjects; and it is for this that we have sought to know something of the place privately, before visiting it with such public ceremonial and state as it deserves. We shall be indebted to you greatly if you will lend us your aid in this intention.”
“Your Majesty is welcome to my service in whatever way it can be of use to you,” replied Ronsard slowly; “As you see, I am an old man and poor—I have lived here for well-nigh thirty years, making as little demand as possible upon the resources of either rough Nature or smooth civilization to provide me with sustenance. There is poor attraction for a king in such a simple home as mine!”
“More than all men living, a king has cause to love simplicity,” returned the monarch, as with his swift and keen glance he noted the old man’s proud figure, fine worn features, and clear, though deeply-sunken eyes;—“for the glittering shows of ceremony are chiefly irksome to those who have to suffer their daily monotony. Let me present you to the Queen—she will thank you as I do, for your kindly consent to play the part of host to us to-day.”
“Nay,”—murmured Ronsard—“No thanks—no thanks!” Then, as the King said a few words to his fair Consort, and she received the old man’s respectful salutation in the cold, grave way which was her custom, he raised his eyes to her face, and started back with an involuntary exclamation.
“By Heaven!” he said suddenly and bluntly, “I never thought to see any woman’s beauty that could compare with that of my Gloria!”
He spoke more to himself than to any listener, but the King hearing his words, was immediately on the alert, and when the whole Royal party moved on again, he, walking in a gracious and kindly way by the old man’s side, and skilfully keeping up the conversation at first on mere generalities, said presently:—
“And that name of Gloria;—may I ask you who it is that bears so strange an appellation?”
Ronsard looked at him somewhat doubtingly.
“Your Majesty considers it strange? Had you ever seen her, you would think it the only fitting name for her,” he answered,—“For she is surely the most glorious thing God ever made!”
“Your wife—or daughter?” gently hinted the King.
The old man smiled bitterly.
“Sir, I have never owned wife or child! For aught I know Gloria may have been born like the goddess Aphrodite, of the sunlight and the sea! No other parents have ever claimed her.”
He checked himself, and appeared disposed to change the subject. The King looked at him encouragingly.
“May I not hear more of her?” he asked.
Ronsard hesitated—then with a certain abruptness replied—
“Nay—I am sorry I spoke of her! There is nothing to tell. I have said she is beautiful—and beauty is always stimulating—even to Kings! But your Majesty will have no chance of seeing her, as she is absent from home to-day.”
The King smiled;—had the rumours of his many gallantries reached The Islands then?—and was this ‘life-philosopher’ afraid that ‘Gloria ‘—whoever she was—might succumb to his royal fascinations? The thought was subtly flattering, but he disguised the touch of amusement he felt, and spoke his next words with a kindly and indulgent air.
“Then, as I shall not see her, you may surely tell me of her? I am no betrayer of confidence!”
A pale red tinged Ronsard’s worn features—anon he said:—
“It is no question of confidence, Sir,—and there is no secret or mystery associated with the matter. Gloria was, like myself, cast up from the sea. I found her half-drowned, a helpless infant tied to a floating spar. It was on the other side of these Islands—among the rocks where there is no landing-place. There is a little church on the heights up there, and every evening the men and boys practise their sacred singing. It was sunset, and I was wandering by myself upon the shore, and in the church above me I heard them chant ‘Gloria! Gloria! Gloria in excelsis Deo!’ And while they were yet practising this line I came upon the child,—lying like a strange lily, in a salt pool,—between two shafts of rock like fangs on either side of her, bound fast with rope to a bit of ship’s timber. I untied her little limbs, and restored her to life; and all the time I was busy bringing her back to breath and motion, the singing in the church above me was ‘Gloria!’ and ever again ‘Gloria!’ So I gave her that name. That was nineteen years ago. She is married now.”
“Married!” exclaimed the King, with a curious sense of mingled relief and disappointment. “Then she has left you?”
“Oh, no, she has not left me!” replied Ronsard; “She stays with me till her husband is ready to give her a home. He is very poor, and lives in hope of better days. Meanwhile poverty so far smiles upon them that they are happy;—and happiness, youth and beauty rarely go together. For once they have all met in the joyous life of my Gloria!”
“I should like to see her!” said the King, musingly; “You have interested me greatly in her history!”
The old man did not reply, but quickening his pace, moved on a little in advance of the King and his suite, to open a gate in front of them, which guarded the approach to a long low house with carved gables and lattice windows, over which a wealth of roses and jasmine clambered in long tresses of pink and white bloom. Smooth grass surrounded the place, and tall pine trees towered in the background; and round the pillars of the broad verandah, which extended to the full length of the house front, clematis and honeysuckle twined in thick clusters, filling the air with delicate perfume. The Royal party murmured their admiration of this picturesque abode, while Ronsard, with a nimbleness remarkable for a man of his age, set chairs on the verandah and lawn for his distinguished guests. Sir Walter Langton and the Marquis Montala strolled about the garden with some of the ladies, commenting on the simple yet exquisite taste displayed in its planting and arrangement; while the King and Queen listened with considerable interest to the conversation of their venerable host. He was a man of evident culture, and his description of the coral-fishing community, their habits and traditions, was both graphic and picturesque.
“Are they all away to-day?” asked the King.
“All the men on this side of The Islands—yes, Sir,” replied Ronsard; “And the women have enough to do inside their houses till their husbands return. With the evening and the moonlight, they will all be out in their fields and gardens, making merry with innocent dance and song, for they are very happy folk—much happier than their neighbours on the mainland.”
“Are you acquainted with the people of the mainland, then?” enquired the King.
“Sufficiently to know that they are dissatisfied;” returned Ronsard quietly,—“And that, deep down among the tangled grass and flowers of that brilliant pleasure-ground called Society, there is a fierce and starving lion called the People, waiting for prey!”
His voice sank to a low and impressive tone, and for a moment his hearers looked astonished and disconcerted. He went on as though he had not seen the expression of their faces.
“Here in The Islands there was the same discontent when I first came. Every man was in heart a Socialist,—every young boy was a budding Anarchist. Wild ideas fired their brains. They sought Equality. No man should be richer than another, they said. Equal lots,—equal lives. They had their own secret Society, connected with another similar one across the sea yonder. They were brave, clever and desperate,—moved by a burning sense of wrong,—wrong which they had not the skill to explain, but which they felt. It was difficult to persuade or soothe such men, for they were men of Nature,—not of Shams. But fierce and obstinate as they were, they were good to me when I was cast up for dead on their seashore. And I, in turn, have tried to be good to them. That is, I have tried to make them happy. For happiness is what we all work for and seek for,—from the beginning to the end of life. We go far afield for it, when it oftener lies at our very doors. Well!—they are a peaceful community now, and have no evil intentions towards anyone. They grudge no one his wealth—I think if the truth were known, they rather pity the rich man than envy him. So, at any rate, I have taught them to do. But, formerly, they were, to say the least of it, dangerous!”
The King heard in silence, although the slightest quizzical lifting of his eyebrows appeared to imply that ‘dangerous’ was perhaps too strong a term by which to designate a handful of Socialistic coral-fishers.
“It is curious,” went on Ronsard slowly, “how soon the sense of wrong and injustice infects a whole community. One malcontent makes a host of malcontents. This is a fact which many governments lose sight of. If I were the ruler of a country—”
Here he suddenly paused—then added with a touch of brusqueness—
“Pardon me, Sir; I have never known the formalities which apply to conversation with a king, and I am too old to learn now. No doubt I speak too boldly! To me you are no more than man; you should be more by etiquette—but by simple humanity you are not!”
The King smiled, well pleased. This independent commoner, with his rough garb and rougher simplicity of speech, was a refreshing contrast to the obsequious personages by whom he was generally surrounded; and he felt an irresistible desire to know more of the life and surroundings of one who had gained a position of evident authority among the people of his own class.
“Go on, my friend!” he said. “Honest expression of thought can offend none but knaves and fools; and though there are some who say I have a smack of both, yet I flatter myself I am wholly neither of the twain! Continue what you were saying—if you were ruler of a country, what would you do?”
Réné Ronsard considered for a moment, and his furrowed brows set in a puzzled line.
“I think,” he said slowly, at last, “I should choose my friends and confidants among the leaders of the people.”
“And is not that precisely what we all do?” queried the King lightly; “Surely every monarch must count his friends among the members of the Government?”
“But the Government does not represent the actual people, Sir!” said Ronsard quietly.
“No? Then what does it represent?” enquired the King, becoming amused and interested in the discussion, and holding up his hand to warn back De Launay, and the other members of his suite who were just coming towards him from their tour of inspection through the garden—“Every member of the Government is elected by the people, and returned by the popular vote. What else would you have?”
“Ministers have not always the popular vote,” said Ronsard; “They are selected by the Premier. And if the Premier should happen to be shifty, treacherous or self-interested, he chooses such men as are most likely to serve his own ends. And it can hardly be said, Sir, that the People truly return the members of Government. For when the time comes for one such man to be elected, each candidate secures his own agent to bribe the people, and to work upon them as though they were so much soft dough, to be kneaded into a political loaf for his private and particular eating. Poor People! Poor hard-working millions! In the main they are all too busy earning the wherewithal to Live, to have any time left to Think—they are the easy prey of the party agent, except—except when they gather to the voice of a real leader, one who though not in Government, governs!”
“And is there such an one?” enquired the King, while as he spoke his glance fell suddenly, and with an unpleasant memory, on the flashing blue of the sapphire in the Premier’s signet he wore; “Here, or anywhere?”
“Over there!” said Ronsard impressively, pointing across the landscape seawards; “On the mainland there is not only one, but many! Women,—as well as men. Writers,—as well as speakers. These are they whom Courts neglect or ignore,—these are the consuming fire of thrones!” His old eyes flashed, and as he turned them on the statuesque beauty of the Queen, she started, for they seemed to pierce into the very recesses of her soul. “When Court and Fashion played their pranks once upon a time in France, there was a pen at work on the ‘Contrat Social’—the pen of one Rousseau! Who among the idle pleasure-loving aristocrats ever thought that a mere Book would have helped to send them to the scaffold!” He clenched his hand almost unconsciously—then he spoke more quietly. “That is what I mean, when I say that if I were ruler of a country, I should take special care to make friends with the people’s chosen thinkers. Someone in authority”—and here he smiled quizzically—“should have given Rousseau an estate, and made him a marquis—in time! The leaders of an advancing Thought,—and not the leaders of a fixed Government are the real representatives of the People!”
Something in this last sentence appeared to strike the King very forcibly.
“You are a philosopher, Réné Ronsard,” he said rising from his chair, and laying a hand kindly on his shoulder. “And so, in another way am I! If I understand you rightly, you would maintain that in many cases discontent and disorder are the fermentation in the mind of one man, who for some hidden personal motive works his thought through a whole kingdom; and you suggest that if that man once obtained what he wanted there would be an end of trouble—at any rate for a time till the next malcontent turned up! Is not that so?”
“It is so, Sir,” replied Ronsard; “and I think it has always been so. In every era of strife and revolution, we shall find one dissatisfied Soul—often a soul of genius and ambition—at the centre of the trouble.”
“Probably you are right,” said the monarch indulgently; “But evidently the dissatisfied soul is not in your body! You are no Don Quixote fighting a windmill of imaginary wrongs, are you?”
A dark red flush mounted to the old man’s brow, and as it passed away, left him pale as death.
“Sir, I have fought against wrongs in my time; but they were not imaginary. I might have still continued the combat but for Gloria!”
“Ah! She is your peace-offering to an unjust world?”
“No Sir; she is God’s gift to a broken heart,” replied Ronsard gently. “The sea cast her up like a pearl into my life; and so for her sake I resolved to live. For her only I made this little home—for her I managed to gain some control over the rough inhabitants of these Islands, and encouraged in them the spirit of peace, mirth and gladness. I soothed their discontent, and tried to instil into them something of the Greek love of beauty and pleasure. But after all, my work sprang from a personal, I may as well say a selfish motive—merely to make the child I loved, happy!”
“Then do you not regret that she is married, and no longer yours to cherish entirely?”
“No, I regret nothing!” answered Ronsard; “For I am old and must soon die. I shall leave her in good and safe hands.”
The King looked at him thoughtfully, and seemed about to ask another question, then suddenly changing his mind, he turned to his Consort and said a few words to her in a low tone, whereupon as if in obedience to a command, she rose, and with all the gracious charm which she could always exert if she so pleased, she enquired of Ronsard if he would permit them to see something of the interior of his house.
“Madam,” replied Ronsard, with some embarrassment; “All I have is at your service, but it is only a poor place.”
“No place is poor that has peace in it,” returned the Queen, with one of those rare smiles of hers, which so swiftly subjugated the hearts of men. “Will you lead the way?”
Thus persuaded, Réné Ronsard could only bow a respectful assent, and obey the request, which from Royalty was tantamount to a command. Signing to the other members of the party, who had stood till now at a little distance, the Queen bade them all accompany her.
“The King will stay here till we return,” she said, “And Sir Roger will stay with him!”
With these words, and a flashing glance at De Launay, she stepped across the lawn, followed by her ladies-in-waiting, with Sir Walter Langton and the other gentlemen; and in another moment the brilliant little group had disappeared behind the trailing roses and clematis, which hung in profusion from the oaken projections of the wide verandah round Ronsard’s picturesque dwelling. Standing still for a moment, with Sir Roger a pace behind him, the King watched them enter the house—then quickly turning round on his heel, faced his equerry with a broad smile.
“Now, De Launay,” he said, “let us find Von Glauben!”
Sir Roger started with surprise, and not a little apprehension.
“Von Glauben, Sir?”
“Yes—Von Glauben! He is here! I saw his face two minutes ago, peering through those trees!” And he pointed down a shadowy path, dark with the intertwisted gloom of untrained pine-boughs. “I am not dreaming, nor am I accustomed to imagine spectres! I am on the track of a mystery, Roger! There is a beautiful girl here named Gloria. The beautiful girl is married—possibly to a jealous husband, for she is apparently hidden away from all likely admirers, including myself! Now suppose Von Glauben is that husband!”
He broke off and laughed. Sir Roger de Launay laughed with him; the idea was too irresistibly droll. But the King was bent on mischief, and determined to lose no time in compassing it.
“Come along!” he said. “If this tangled path holds a secret, it shall be discovered before we are many minutes older! I am confident I saw Von Glauben; and what he can be doing here passes my comprehension! Follow me, Roger! If our worthy Professor has a wife, and his wife is beautiful, we will pardon him for keeping her existence a secret from us so long!”
He laughed again; and turning into the path he had previously indicated, began walking down it rapidly, Sir Roger following closely, and revolving in his own perplexed mind the scene of the morning, when Von Glauben had expressed such a strong desire to get away to The Islands, and had admitted that there was “a lady in the case.”
“Really, it is most extraordinary!” he thought. “The King no sooner decides to break through conventional forms, than all things seem loosened from their moorings! A week ago, we were all apparently fixed in our orbits of exact routine and work—the King most fixed of all—but now, who can say what may happen next!”
At that moment the monarch turned round.
“This path seems interminable, Roger,” he said; “It gets darker, closer and narrower. It thickens, in fact, like, the mystery we are probing!”
Sir Roger glanced about him. A straight band of trees hemmed them in on either side, and the daylight filtered through their stems pallidly, while, as the King had said, there seemed to be no end to the path they were following. They walked on swiftly, however, exchanging no further word, when suddenly an unexpected sound came sweeping up through the heavy branches. It was the rush and roar of the sea,—a surging, natural psalmody that filled the air, and quivered through the trees with the measured beat of an almost human chorus.
“This must be another way to the shore,” said the King, coming to a standstill; “And there must be rocks or caverns near. Hark how the waves thunder and reverberate through some deep hollow!”
Sir Roger listened, and heard the boom of water rolling in and rolling out again, with the regularity and rhythm of an organ swell, but he caught an echo of something else besides, which piqued his curiosity and provoked him to a touch of unusual excitement,—it was the sweet and apparently quickly suppressed sound of a woman’s laughter. He glanced at his Royal master, and saw at once that he, too, had sharp ears for that silvery cadence of mirth, for his eyes flashed into a smile.
“On, Roger,” he said softly; “We are close on the heels of the problem!”
But they had only pressed forward a few steps when they were again brought to a sudden pause. A voice, whose gruffly mellow accents were familiar to both of them, was speaking within evidently close range, and the King, with a warning look, motioned De Launay back a pace or two, himself withdrawing a little into the shadow of the trees.
“Ach! Do not sing, my princess!” said the voice; “For if you open your rosy mouth of music, all the birds of the air, and all the little fishes of the sea will come to listen! And, who knows! Someone more dangerous than either a bird or a fish may listen also!”
The King grasped De Launay by the arm.
“Was I not right?” he whispered. “There is no mistaking Von Glauben’s accent!”
Sir Roger looked, as he felt, utterly bewildered. In his own mind he felt it very difficult to associate the Professor with a love affair. Yet things certainly seemed pointing to some entanglement of the sort. Suddenly the King held up an admonitory finger.
“Listen!” he said.
Another voice spoke, rich and clear, and sweet as honey.
“Why should I not sing?” and there was a thrill of merriment in the delicious accents. “You are so afraid of everything to-day! Why? Why should I stay here with nothing to do? Because you tell me the King is visiting The Islands. What does that matter? What do I care for the King? He is nothing to me!”
“You would be something, perhaps, to him if he saw you,” replied the guttural voice of Von Glauben. “It is safer to be out of his way. You are a very wilful princess this afternoon! You must remember your husband is jealous!”
The King started.
“Her husband! What the devil does Von Glauben know about her husband!”
De Launay was dumb. A nameless fear and dismay began to possess him.
“My husband!” And the sweet voice laughed out again. “It would be strange indeed for a poor sailor to be jealous of a king!”
“If the poor sailor had a beautiful wife he worshipped, and the King should admire the wife, he might have cause to be jealous!” replied Von Glauben; “And with some ladies, a poor sailor would stand no chance against a king! Why are you so rebellious, my princess, to-day? Have I not brought a letter from your beloved which plainly asks you to keep out of the sight of the King? Have I not been an hour with you here, reading the most beautiful poetry of Heine?”
“That is why I want to sing,” said the sweet voice, with a touch of wilfulness in its tone. “Listen! I will give you a reading of Heine in music!” And suddenly, rich and clear as a bell, a golden cadence of notes rang out with the words:
“Ah, Hast thou forgotten, That I possessed thy heart?”
The King sprang lightly out of his hiding-place, and with De Launay moved on slowly and cautiously through the trees.
“Ach, mein Gott!” they heard Von Glauben exclaim—“That is a bird-call which will float on wings to the ears of the King!”
A soft laugh rippled on the air.
“Dear friend and master, why are you so afraid?” asked the caressing woman’s voice again;—“We are quite hidden away from the Royal visitors,—and though you have been peeping at the King through the trees, and though you know he is actually in our garden, he will never find his way here! This is quite a secret little study and schoolroom, where you have taught me so much!—yes—so much!—and I am very grateful! And whenever you come to see me you teach me something more—you are always good and kind!—and I would not anger you for the world! But what is the good of knowing and feeling beautiful things, if I may not express them?”
“You do express them,—in yourself,—in your own existence and appearance!” said the Professor gruffly; “but that is a physiological accident which I do not expect you to understand!”
There was a moment’s silence. Then came a slight movement, as of quick feet clambering among loose pebbles, and the voice rang out again.
“There! Now I am in my rocky throne! Do you remember—Ah, no!—you know nothing about it,—but I will tell you the story! It was here, in this very place, that my husband first saw me!”
“Ach so!” murmured Von Glauben. “It is an excellent place to make a first appearance! Eve herself could not have chosen more picturesque surroundings to make a conquest of Adam!”
Apparently his mild sarcasm fell on unheeding ears.
“He was walking slowly all alone on the shore,” went on the voice, dropping into a more plaintive and tender tone; “The sun had sunk, and one little star was sparkling in the sky. He looked up at the star—and—”
“Then he saw a woman’s eye,” interpolated Von Glauben; “Which is always more attractive to weak man than an impossible-to-visit planet! What does Shakespeare say of women’s eyes?
‘Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp; her eye in heaven
Would through the airy regions stream so bright,
That birds would sing and think it were not night!’”
“Ach! That is so!”
As the final words left his lips, a rich note of melody stirred the air, and a song in which words and music seemed thoroughly welded together, rose vibratingly up to the quiet sky:
“Here by the sea,
My Love found me!
Seagulls over the waves were swinging;
Mermaids down in their caves were singing,
And one little star in the rosy sky
Sparkled above like an angel’s eye!
My Love found me,
And I and he
Plighted our troth eternally!
Oh day of splendour,
And self-surrender!
The day when my Love found me!
Here, by the sea,
My King crown’d me!
Wild ocean sang for my Coronation,
With the jubilant voice of a mighty nation!—
‘Mid the towering rocks he set my throne,
And made me forever and ever his own!
My King crown’d me,
And I and he
Are one till the world shall cease to be!
Oh sweet love story!
Oh night of glory!
The night when my King crown’d me!”
No language could ever describe the marvellous sweetness of the voice that sung these lines; it was so full of exquisite triumph, tenderness and passion, that it seemed more supernatural than human. When the song ceased, a great wave dashed on the shore, like a closing organ chord, and Von Glauben spoke.
“There! You wanted your own way, my princess, and you have had it! You have sung like one of the seraphim;—do not be surprised if mortals are drawn to listen. Sst! What is that?”
There was a pause. The King had inadvertently cracked a twig on one of the pine-boughs he was holding back in an endeavour to see the speakers. But he now boldly pushed on, beckoning De Launay to follow close, and in another minute had emerged on a small sandy plateau, which led, by means of an ascending path, to a rocky eminence, encircled by huge boulders and rocky pinnacles, which somewhat resembled peaks of white coral,—and here, on a height above him,—with the afternoon sun-glow bathing her in its full mellow radiance, sat a visibly enthroned goddess of the landscape,—a girl, or rather a perfect woman, more beautiful than any he had ever seen, or even imagined. He stared up at her in dazzled wonder, half blinded by the brightness of the sun and her almost equally blinding loveliness.
“Gloria!” he exclaimed breathlessly, hardly conscious of his own utterance; “You are Gloria!”
The fair vision rose, and came swiftly forward with an astonished look in her bright deep eyes.
“Yes!” she said, “I am Gloria!”