MISS SHARP WAITING FOR THE PROFESSOR.
We did not; but left her on the stair.
Sara and I strolled over to the old light-house—a weather-beaten tower standing almost in the water, regularly fortified with walls, angles, and loop-holes—a lonely little stronghold down by the sea. It was a picturesque old beacon, built by the Spaniards a long time ago as a look-out; when the English came into possession of Florida, in 1763, they raised the look-out sixty feet higher, and planted a cannon on the top, to be fired as a signal when a vessel came in sight. The light that we had so often watched flashing and fading in the twilight as we walked on the sea-wall was put in still later by the United States government; in old times a bonfire was lighted on top every night.
OLD LIGHT-HOUSE, ANASTASIA ISLAND.
“I like this gray old beacon better than yonder tall, spying, brand-new tower,” I said. “This is a drowsy old fellow, who sleeps all day and only wakes at night, as a light-house should, whereas that wide-awake striped Yankee over there is evidently keeping watch of all that goes on in the little city. Iris must take care.”
“Do you think he can spy into the demi-lune?” said Sara, smiling.
At the coquina quarry we found the Professor, scintillating all over with enthusiasm. “A most singular conglomerate of shells cemented by carbonate of lime,” he said, putting on a stronger pair of glasses—“a recent formation, evidently, of the post-tertiary period. You are aware, I suppose, that it is found nowhere else in the world? It is soft, as you see, when first taken out, but becomes hard by exposure to the air.” Knee-deep in coquina, radiating information at every pore, he stood—a happy man!
“And Miss Sharp?” I whispered.
“On the stair,” replied Sara.