“Of course we do!” chorused “The Merry Hearts” eagerly.
“Then get unpacked, and come to lunch with your thinnest dresses on,” said Mr. Wales. “Here we are at your hotel.”
Again there was a chorus of delighted exclamations, as “The Merry Hearts” climbed the terrace and found themselves in a park of tropical loveliness. Great silk-cotton trees, with their strangely gnarled roots and wide-spreading branches, and feathery-leaved tamarinds shut out the glare of the sunlight. Banana-trees waved their great leaves, torn into shreds by the winds. Hibiscus bushes, starred with scarlet blossoms, bordered the paths. Yellow jasmine climbed the trellises of an arbor. At their feet beds of violets and sweet alyssum perfumed the air, and overhead myriads of gaily colored birds chirped and warbled among the green branches.
“Why, it’s like fairy-land!” cried Roberta.
But the great white hotel, with its wide, vine-sheltered verandas, bespoke more substantial comforts than fairies would need. The girls hurried in to unpack, for it was almost time for lunch and the cricket match.
“And by the way,” announced Mr. Wales, as he bid the party good-bye on the veranda, “I’ll ask Eaton to go with us this afternoon. He’s stopping at the Colonial, he tells me. He seems like a fine fellow, and besides, I’ve got to have somebody to help me keep all you girls straight.”
Mary gave Betty a significant pinch, as they followed the turbaned black woman, who was in charge of the annex, up-stairs to their rooms. But unfortunately her hopes were speedily dashed. Ethel had seen plenty of cricket in England, and she had arranged to spend the afternoon in the shade with Mrs. Wales.
This disappointment did not in the least prevent “The Merry Hearts” from having a delightful time. The cricket match was on the golf grounds, and the golf grounds proved to be the fields around an old Spanish fort—not the little boat-shaped one that the girls had seen from the harbor in the morning, and noticed again just behind and above their hotel, but another one much larger and a great deal more interesting, for most of it was underground.
The cricket match was over early, so that there was plenty of time before dark for a visit to the fort. An English soldier was supposed to be in charge, but Friday afternoon was a half holiday, the soldier was merry-making like the rest of the Nassau people, and his small son, who was black as the ace of spades and who said that his name was Philip Charles Augustus Smith was acting as guard and guide in his father’s stead. First he took the party up in the lookout tower, which commanded a fine view of the town, the island, and the harbor, and then, getting a light-wood torch, he showed them through the great range of underground chambers, cut in years gone by by convict labor out of the solid coral rock, which cuts almost as easily as putty when it is first exposed to the air. There was the governor’s chamber with its one grated window, the prisoners’ quarters with no air at all, save what could come through a long winding shaft, barrack rooms for several thousand soldiers, a vault for storing powder, and, most interesting of all, a well to supply the garrison with water. Philip Charles Augustus Smith felt in his pockets and produced several pebbles, which he threw down this well; and the visitors were amazed at the interval that elapsed between the tossing of the stone and its splash in the water far below.