words in a low tone, which she did not seem to understand. "Naō entende,” said I*. "Sim, sim," interrupted Maria, "entendo bem; diga." “Está vm. feliz, senhora†?” The abbess, who was engaged with my companion, turned her head, and Maria answered with an air of gaiety, “O sim, muito feliz‡.” I shook my head as in doubt. A minute elapsed, and the abbess was occupied again. Maria put her hands through the grating, took one of mine, and made me feel a thin gold ring on her little finger, and then, pressing my hand closely, said, in an accent which I still hear; "Naō, naō, naō; tenho dor do coraçao §." The service began; the old nuns croaked like frogs, and the young ones paced up and down, round and about, in strange and fanciful figures, chaunting as sweetly as caged Canary birds. I gazed at them for a long time with feelings that cannot be told, and when it was time to go, I caught Maria's eye, and made her a slight but earnest bow. She dropped a curtesy which seemed a genu "She does not understand." † “Yes, yes, I understand well; speak." happy, lady?" "Are you flection to her neighbour, raised a violet behind her service-book to her mouth, held it, looked at it, and kissed it in token of an eternal farewell. I wish to know whether there would have been any harm in my accepting the captain's offer of his coxswain and gig's crew, and running away with Maria Clementina. The thing was perfectly easy, as we all agreed at the time; at the principal door there was no grating, and in the court none but maimed or decrepit persons; three men should stand at the outer gate and prevent any egress till we had brought our prize down to the Loo Rock; in a quarter of an hour we should be on board a man of war, and even if they had taken the alarm and fired from the battery, it is perfectly well known that the Portugueze government never allows more than one half of the due charge of powder to its artillery, and so we might have laughed at their impotent attempts. But what could I have done with my nun? Her lover was, heaven knows where, and as to conjugating myself, although Maria was a very lovely girl, I happen to have my hands quite full for the present. So God bless thee, and again in very sorrow I say, God bless thee infinitely, sweet and unfortunate Madeiran! If I were a Tory, as sure I am not, I would pray the Cortes might get on their legs again, if it were only to let thee out of thy prison. CROSSING THE TROPIC. ABOUT Six in the evening of the 17th of January, a sail was discovered to windward on the larboard bow. Shortly afterwards the man on the fore-top gallant yard saw that she was making towards us on the other tack. There seemed to be something mysterious in the appearance of this sail and the course she was keeping; unless she came from Sierra Leone, no one could imagine what she was. The captain eyed her with his glass; she was under courses and top-sails, with her jibs flying, and a broad pendant at the mast head. Yet she made no signal, and was nearing us fast. The sun went down into the sea as a great palpable sphere of flame, and the stars came out as stars only come out over the bosom of the central Atlantic. I had been hanging over the windward gangway*, and gazing on the sea till my eyes * But I recommend no one to follow my example; the draft is very great, and is sure to develope any rheumatic tendencies you may accidentally possess. D swam; and methought a fair and languid shape rose ever and anon between the foamy crests of the purple waves, looking Eugenia at me, and beckoning and speaking, though I could not hear, and pointing down to ocean, and then long and steadily to heaven, whereat I trembled and sighed, and fears and suspicious fancies, and thoughts of dead things, and musings of preternatural agencies, absorbed my senses, when on a sudden a tremendous conch roar, issuing from under the bows of the ship, startled me from my reverie. It was eight o'clock, and a hoarse piratical Atlantic voice hailed us and demanded who we were; the captain answered with his hat off, for it seems he had been' on the station before and recognized the awful sound, and having told our name and other logbook particulars, concluded, by requesting His Majesty to come on board. Neptune, for it now appeared to be indeed no other than this awful personage, replied that he could not leave his car that night, but he would visit us the next morning. He said; the conchs Tritonian sounded again, the god rushed by in a flaming chariot like unto a tar barrel, which the sailor heaves upon the forecastle, what time he tars the newly twisted yarn; and from yards and masts, main top, top-gallant and royal, down came an avalanche of water, which laid some dozen of unwary mariners sprawling in an inundation of Neptunian ichor. At nine the next morning the king came in through one of the bridle ports. He was seated on what men would have supposed to be a guncarriage, and drawn by four marine monsters. Amphitritty was by his side, and their only child, the heir of the sea, was in her arms. The king was crowned with Atlantic water-flowers, and he bore in his hand the trident which sailors have imitated in the common grange. He was preceded by six Tritons, whom I had so often wished to see and hear after reading Wordsworth's sonnet*, and Mercury came with wings, caduceus and a scroll under his arm. A white bear, who seemed to have come from Regent's Inlet on an iceberg, which melted in latitude 50° and left him to shift for himself, acted as body guard, and another troop of Tritons closed the cavalcade. We all took off our hats; civil things passed between Neptune and the captain; the man complained that the trades were kept too far to the south now, and the god declared that as he travelled by steam himself, he was wholly unaware of the fact, but that he would order them up forthwith; and then he desired all his children, who had not entered his kingdom's capital province *The world is too much with us |