CHAPTER IV.
[YES.]
On leaving the church, Galbraith and his companion walked slowly down the road. The street was hedged in between two low walls, gray with age, and partly coated with a short, thick moss, whose original colour was hidden by the dust lying heavy upon it. The tops of the walls were covered with bits of broken glass, fragments of bottles stuck upright into the masonry as a defence against trespassers.
Behind these barriers, on either side, the date and cocoa palms grew in thick profusion, hiding from view the dwelling-houses which lay among them. At short intervals a disreputable-looking gate was passed, the paint peeling off in patches from the wood-work. With the exception of the one or two couples returning from service, and a few native Christians at Pinto's liquor stall, lounging with the flies among the long-necked glass bottles, there were no people in the street. The middle of the road was six inches deep in fine dust, but on the side where the pavement should have been, was a small pathway, beaten hard, with just sufficient room for two, provided they walked somewhat closely to each other. John went in the dust, leaving his companion the whole of the sidewalk. His boots were covered with the clinging gray powder, and a portion of it had sprinkled itself on his clothes.
"It's very dusty there, Mr. Galbraith; don't you think you had better come on to the sidewalk?"
"Thank you," said John humbly, as he joined the widow. As he came up, the folds of her dress brushed against him, and her shoulder grazed his. The touch sent a thrill through Galbraith's veins.
"I--I beg pardon," said he nervously, "I am very awkward."
The widow smiled slightly, and shot a glance at him from under her dark eye-lashes. "I don't see that you have anything to beg pardon for."
Galbraith was about to say that all life should be one appeal for pardon, but he checked himself, and, glancing at the walls on either side of them, remarked--
"I wonder how many thousands of bottles were used to make that defence work on the walls here!"