Awed and silent, we creep from our hiding-place and drag open the unwilling gate and once again we are out in the dazzling sunlight.
There—wonderful to relate—on its pedestal was the statue as it stood the day before, with outstretched hand and far-away look, scanning the distant horizon where to his ever disappointed eyes was just lifting the palm-fringed shore of that mythical island of Bimini, where at last flowed the long-sought fountain of youth.
Lest the unhappy shade again returning should seek sudden vengeance for our bold espionage, we took our flight toward the Plaza, nor stopped to breathe until again we found refuge in the crowded shops.
CHAPTER V.
CHARLOTTE AMALIE. ST. THOMAS
I.
AFTER the long stretches of ocean, you from the North will find that there is something positively cosy about these dear islands. You tuck your head under your wing with the parrots at night, off one island, and, the next thing you know, it’s morning, the sweet land-breeze steals in through the port-hole, and you’re up with the monkeys off another island—perhaps more enchanting than the last. Why, it seems not half the trouble going from port to port that it is to make fashionable calls in the great city, and such a lot more fun.
But speaking of parrots and monkeys: the only ones we have seen thus far were some very solemn little creatures which have been brought to the ship for sale,—poor captives, chained and unnaturally pious, sitting alongside their black captors.
We have not heard a single bird-note since leaving the North. Is it possible that there are no song-birds here, and in fact no birds of plumage left about the settlements? We fully expected the latter, but not a glimpse have we had of them,—no, not even in the forest along the Ozama, did we distinguish a single bird-note. Can it be that the plume-hunters for our Northern milliners have ranged through all these sunny islands? Ah, my friends of the feather toques and the winged head-gear, what have we to answer for? It all seems so empty without the birds where trees and flowers grow so gladly; just as if Nature’s feast were spread to empty chairs. After all, how fondly we do love that particular expression of creation with which we are long familiar! My heart reaches out in homesick yearning for the notes of our dear Northern songsters. How brutal are the details of the “march of civilisation!”
From San Juan, Puerto Rico, to St. Thomas it was only a night’s journey, and I am sure, had we been so disposed, we might have touched some other islands equally lovely on the way. But there must be some time for rest,—even though Little Blue Ribbons said she did not want to sleep (she knew she couldn’t), and Sister thought it a great waste of valuable experience not to make all the ports there were. Nevertheless, when morning came and the sun was wide awake, I had no little trouble in arousing the children.
And now it came to pass that all those threatenings and fitful tears and dire forebodings of the day before were simply whims and weather jokes. The sea fell into a gentle calm, and on St. Thomas there never shone a brighter sun or blew a sweeter breeze; and we realised that at last we were under the lee of that smiling windbreak of the Caribbean—“The Windward Islands.” Getting our anchor early, we moved from our first stopping-place, well out in the harbour, over to the wharves; where the huge piles of coal rose up before the port-hole, with other ranges of piles, like mimic mountains, farther on, while we were so close to the dock that I could see the gangway being lowered, as I bent over the sleepy little girls.