"There your philosophy is at fault, Tickler; for many's the man now in the service of his country who has not so much dignity as my horse Battle. Console yourself, sir, and remember that hardships are the prop-sticks of a rising man's glory. And having borne your part in this ceremony with such consummate fortitude, you must know that the officers set you down for a terrible fellow."
"Let them practice their pranks on some one else, or by the saints they shall suffer for it. But tell me, your excellency, is it a custom with secretaries to trick their landlords, undergo these batterings and bruisings, and go for weeks without a shilling? If it be, Orlando Tickler returns to his profession of a critic! And to tell you the truth, sir, it is not clear to me of whom I am to get pay for my services at this outlandish court. But pray where is this Kalorama? for I have puzzled my brain over it not a little. And while you are about it, please enlighten me further on the benefits this mission of yours will bestow upon mankind, that I may be instructed while I am getting this grease and tar out of my beard."
"A good diplomatist, I have heard it said, friend Tickler, never blurts out what he means to do, but keeps a still tongue until he has effected his ends. Keep then your faith square, ask no questions, watch closely, and the result shall come as clear as day to you when I am on the field." The secretary gradually became more reconciled to his fate, and soon renewed the labor of restoring his beard.
Several days now passed with so much pleasantry that the general and his secretary became the admiration of all on board. Not a man, from the commander down to the humblest "ordinary," but was eager to pay them homage, minister to their comfort, or afford them amusement. They were thus happily pursuing their voyage when the commander, one pleasant evening, having entertained the general with various sea stories, was approached by one of his officers, who reported that Spark Island had been sighted from aloft. This news sent a thrill of joy into the hearts of all on board, for Spark Island lay ten leagues off the coast of Kalorama. Every eye was now fixed in the direction indicated, and many were the glasses brought into use. After various scannings, what seemed a mere speck on the horizon was pronounced by the commander to be nothing less than the famous Spark Island, a bit of land quite resembling the steeple of one of our fashionable churches, and which nature, in one of her strange freaks had ejected from the bottom of the sea, that certain gulls and other sea-birds, having no other convenient place to build their nests, might take advantage of its solitude. "Verily, your excellency," said the commander, addressing General Potter with great suavity of manner, "there is so curious a history connected with this pitiful little island, that I feel you would be deeply interested with a recital of it."
"Indeed, sir," returned the general, "as this history concerns me as a diplomatist, I should be delighted to hear it from your lips."
"You must know, then," resumed the commander, "that the natives along the coast have a tradition they firmly believe in, and which sets forth that this island was thrown up by a special act of providence as a place of refuge for a poor priest, a good and holy man, who, being admitted to the confidence of the court of a Chief then ruling over Kalorama, was discovered, by a keen-sighted attendant, in an amour with one of his daughters, a girl of so much beauty that various chiefs had come from the east, and the west, and the north, and the south, to lay their offerings at her feet. But to none of them would she give her hand and heart. And although the priest protested his innocence before heaven, and the girl, whose name was Matura, declared her chastity as unsullied as the driven snow, the father was not to be moved, but per-emptorily ordering them both into a canoe, sent them to drift at the mercy of the waves, a merited banishment-in his eyes. Many years passed, and nothing being heard of the priest and Matura, it was thought the sea had swallowed them up, when they were discovered on this lonely island by some Spanish adventurers from a neighboring coast. The priest at once gave the visitors an account of how the island rose from the ocean by special providence for his protection, together with a minute description of all that had taken place since their banishment. He had chanted vespers regularly three times a day, while Matura had confessed to him, sang to him, and made him garments of the feathers of birds, the flesh of which furnished them with food. What seemed most singular, was that although their locks were whitened with the cares of fourscore years, both stood ready to swear before an inquisition of saints that neither in thought nor deed had they sinned against the commandments.
"Meanwhile the servant, instrumental in procuring the banishment of the priest and Matura, was brought to his death-bed, and as he was troubled about leaving this world with so deep a crime in his heart, he came out and declared that the charge he had brought against the priest and Matura was a tissue of lies which he had been bribed to promulgate by another priest, to whom he was in the habit of confessing. But the innocence thus revealed was of no avail; for the priest and Matura died on the island, and there was an end of it as far as that went.
"The Spaniards returned and reported the discovery to their people, as also the story of the priest and Matura. Whereupon the Spaniards laid claims to Spark Island, they being, as they asserted, the first discoverers. But the story, together with the discovery, was not long in coursing down the coast to the ears of the Kaloramas, who immediately fitted out a fleet of seven canoes, and dispatched them in charge of twenty stalwarth natives and a priest, who had taken high orders, such an one being held necessary to the safety of the expedition. Well, they descried the island, and having landed, found the bones of the priest and Matura in a cave, on the side of a steep bluff. And when these were brought home, the people of Kalorama went into deep mourning, and had them buried with great ceremony in a grove of cocoanut trees, where all girls of tender years were taught to go at early morning and lay offerings of flowers upon the grave of Matura the innocent.
"But there soon sprung up a great dispute as to the possession of this island. The Spaniards claimed it in virtue of their discovery, while the Kaloramas, with no less plausibility, asserted a priority by virtue of its having been first inhabited by the priest and Matura, whom they claimed as citizens of Kalorama. And, notwithstanding a manuscript written by the priest while in his lonely exile, and describing how an All-wise Providence had created this island solely for his preservation, was by an intriguing Spaniard placed in the hands of the King of the Kaloramas as proof against his own countrymen, the question of possession rose into such gigantic proportions that a great war broke out between the disputants. And although neither could ever hope to derive the slightest benefit from its possession, the contest was bloody enough on both sides. And when they had fought many battles, involved various other nations, and desolated each other's dominions, they agreed that each should send a deputation of not less than three priests, who, when they had visited the island, should declare upon the merits of the case. Whereupon two expeditions were fitted out at great cost of time and treasure; but after cruising for more than thirty days, not a vestige of Spark Island could they find. Therefore, it was agreed among the priests that as a visitation of providence had created the island for a holy purpose, so also had God in his wisdom caused it to sink into the sea, that an end might be put to the savage wars waged for its possession. And as neither party could dispute this solemn verdict of the priests, both cheerfully accepted it, and were for ever after inalienable friends. And there is an end to that, as far as it goes.
"It was generally agreed that Spark Island had vanished, for nearly a century passed, and not a mariner could be found to say he had seen it, though several were ready to swear by their buttons that they had heard mermaids singing precisely where it once stood. And so matters remained until a few years ago, when two of our enterprising countrymen, who were cruising down this way in search of adventures, came upon it, and finding it covered with a rich and valuable manure, fancied it a new discovery, laid claim to it in the name of our government, and, blinded by their enthusiasm, declared it one of the greatest islands history had any account of, though truly it was but six furlongs long and four wide. Many and wonderful were the representations made to our government by these adventurers concerning this great discovery, and the benefits that were to flow from it to our country. The humblest husbandman was to get a mere pinch of its rich deposits, and, having sprinkled it over his broad acres, would immediately find them transferred into fields of luxuriant corn. Mere ounces were to make fertile the most sterile lands; and even old Virginia put on her spectacles, and began looking forward to the time when every bald hill, from the Rappahannock to the Blue Ridge, would wear a rich carpet of green.