After a few moments of pacing, Agueda came to the sand spit which ran out from the plantation into the sea. Here was the boat-house which Don Gil had built, and Agueda noticed that it was placed upon a high point, with ways leading down on either side into the water. She looked wistfully at the boat-house. "How I should love to sail upon that sea," thought Agueda. "No water, however high, could frighten me." Then she recalled with a flash the flood which had brought her happiness. She smiled faintly, for with the thought the unpleasant feeling which Don Gil's words had called up returned, she knew not why. Agueda was pacing towards the south. Upon her right stood up tall and high the asta of Palmacristi, the staff from which hung the lantern that, she had heard, sent forth its white ray each night to warn the seafarers on that lonely coast.
"What harm for a ship to run on the sand," thought Agueda. "I have heard that rocks are cruel. But the sand is soft. It need hurt no one."
She struck spurs to Castaño, and covered several miles before she again drew rein. And now the bank grew high, and Agueda awoke to the fact that she was alone upon the beach, screened from the eyes of every one. Again the thought came to her of a bath in the sea, and she was about to rein the chestnut in when she heard a shout from the plateau above her head. She stopped, and tipping back her straw hat, she looked upward. All that she could discover was a mass of flowers in motion. "They are the air-plants, certainly," said Agueda to herself, "but I never saw them to grow like that." She looked to right and to left, but there was no human being in sight along the yellow bank outlined by sand and overhanging weeds.
"Who calls me?" she cried aloud, holding her hair from her ears, where the wind persisted in blowing it.
"Caramba, muchacho! Can you not see who it is? It is I, Gremo."
There was a violent agitation of the mass of blooms, and Agueda now perceived that a head was shaking out its words from the centre of this woodland extravaganza.
"I can hardly see you, Gremo," said Agueda. "What do you want with me, Gremo?"
"And must I make brains for every muchacho[3] between here and the Port of Entry? Do you not know there are the quicksands just beyond?"
"Quicksands, Gremo! Yes, I had heard of quicksands, but I did not think them here. Can I get up the bank, Gremo?"
"No," answered Gremo, from his flower screen. "You must ride back a long way." He wheeled suddenly toward the south—at least, the mass of flowers wheeled, and a hand was stretched forth from the centre. A finger pointed along the sand. Agueda turned in the saddle and shaded her eyes again.