When the throng of joyous, excited comrades had landed, they formed in line and marched up from the pier. The wide, white, smooth road led through a wilderness of flowers which had grown in wild profusion since they had been abandoned two years before. The Wolfs led the procession, with Barbara and Norman by their side.
When they reached the big circle of scarlet geraniums in the centre of the floral court between the two wings of the great building they stopped, and Catherine began in her clear, thrilling soprano voice the Marseillaise hymn. The pioneers crowded around her tall, commanding figure and sang with inspired emotion. Every heart beat with high resolve. The heaven of which they had dreamed was no longer a dream. They were walking its white, shining streets. Their souls were crying for joy in its dazzling court of honour. The old world, with its sin and shame, its crime and misery, its hunger and cold, its greed and lust, its cruelty and insanity, had passed away, and lo! all things were new. The very air was charged with faith and hope and love. A wave of religious ecstasy swept the crowd. They called each by their first names. Strong men embraced, crying "Comrade!" through their tears. The older ones had made allowances for the glowing accounts of the island. They expected some disillusioning at first. Yet their wildest expectations were far surpassed. Such beauty, such grandeur, such wealth of nature, such magnificence of equipment, were too good to be true, and yet they were facts.
The island of Ventura was enchanted. The impression it gave each heart of the certainty of success was the biggest asset of real wealth with which the colony began its history.
CHAPTER XV[ToC]
FOR THE CAUSE
During the first enchanted days every man woman and child entered the strange new system with a determination to see only its beauty, its truth, its sure success. Service was the order of the day. Men who had never before worked with their hands asked the privilege of the hardest tasks.
The whole colony swarmed to unload the ship. They refused to allow the crew to touch a piece of freight or handle a piece of baggage.