In returning, the surf-board was thrown away, and awaiting a good opportunity as before, he swam boldly into the rollers, keeping his face toward them, and diving whenever they threatened to break. In this way he reached the shore without a single bruise, bringing an answer that the Sarcelle would go around to the lee side of the island, where we could embark in safety.
The next morning our caravan started, and after much suffering from fatigue and thirst, we reached the French camp at 11 p.m. of the second day.
We were treated with the utmost kindness and courtesy, and on the 26th of March got under way for Honolulu. By ten o'clock Christmas Island, the resting-place of so many weeks, sunk below the horizon, and in sixteen days we stood once more on the wharf at Honolulu, surrounded again by our welcoming friends.
SAN JACINTO CORN.[1]
BY LILLIE E. BARR.
There are thousands who remember the shout of sympathy
That rolled from the New England hills down to the Mexic sea
When the brave and gallant Houston, with his desperate little band,
On San Jacinto's flowery plain won freedom for the land.
They brought before him Santa Anna, the crafty and the bold,
The wretch who wrote the cruel words: "Slay both the young and old.
Spare no American you see; set all their homes ablaze;
For they are heretics in faith, foreign in speech and ways."
A fugitive, a captive bound, he stood that bright May day
Among the stern and angry men that he had vowed to slay,
And bowed with all his Spanish grace, and said, in accents bland:
"General, you are most fortunate to lead so brave a band!
"Are they Americans? If so, I do not understand
The men whom Mexico permits to settle in this land.
I am a soldier, but ne'er saw such men since I was born."
Then Houston took out of his pouch part of an ear of corn.
"No, sir, you do not understand," he, smiling proudly, said.
"For four days we have lived on corn, tasted not meat or bread.
How could you hope to e'er enslave men that were free men born?
And who can watch and march and fight upon an ear of corn?"
Young Zavala made answer swift: "The hope indeed is vain.
General, from off that ear of corn give me, I pray, one grain;
And I will plant the precious seed, and hoard whate'er it yields,
Till I can freely scatter it o'er all my pleasant fields!"
"And I a grain!" "And I a grain!" cried all the eager band.
Till Santa Anna surely felt he could not understand
The men who prized a grain of corn because in memory
It linked itself with a Texan fight for faith and liberty.
But in a few short years each grain increased a million-fold,
And over many a lovely mile the pleasant story told.
I heard it rustling in their leaves one sunny July morn
Camping among the tasselled ears of the San Jacinto corn.