He pointed shorewards just as a puff of white smoke issued from an innocent-looking clump of trees on the rocky hillside, which preceded the sound of an answering boom from the iron lips of the fortress. This was repeated many times, the hoarse cannon barks alternating between gun-ship and shore, in an awe-inspiring exchange of courtesies. As the girls grew used to the thunderous sounds they delighted to speculate from which bastion, or ledge, or flowering bush, would come that little puff of smoke, to be followed by the lightning and thunder of man's invention, scarcely less terrible than those of nature's cloud contests.
"I'm glad to have seen it," said Faith somewhat tremulously, when the salvo was over. "It gives one some idea of what it might be if that fortress were really firing for business. Just think how dreadful!"
"But do tell me," cried her sister, "how can trees and shrubs grow so luxuriantly on that rocky soil, and what keeps the houses from blowing off some of those steep cliffs? Do you know, I never supposed there were any houses, before. I thought, from the pictures, that the rock went straight up out of the water, with the fort stuck on top, like a thimble on a big chocolate caramel. But here's a regular town."
Mr. Lawrence laughed.
"It's odd, the ideas we get of places till we see them! To be sure, the rock is nearly perpendicular to the north and east, but here, as you see, it makes a long slope to the water's edge, and the cliff is broken into many elevations. Of course, you'll go ashore and take a closer look at it all?"
"Yes, father's going with us. We'll be here quite a while to take on coal, and he wants us to see the galleries, and the signal-station."
"And I want to see the tailless monkeys," added Dwight, as he joined them. "We'll have a procession to brag of, for nearly everybody's going ashore. Mr. Malcolm's to lead the van with the children, he says, and Mrs. Campbell is to close up the rear of his section, while mother follows with ours. They've been laughing about it over there. Ah, there's Bess beckoning! Be sure and join us, girls."
"Yes, when father comes. Goody! here he is. We're all ready, papa."
"So am I, but you'll have to wait till I've attended to my papers—but it won't take long. Just follow on."
The passengers were soon streaming shorewards over the long pier, and sniffing with delight the fresh odor of flowers that filled the air, which, to Hope, was a continual wonder, for she could not yet accept the fact of lovely English gardens on this gray old rock.