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"THE GRILLE WHICH EVEN IN SPAIN IS WITHOUT EQUAL-CAPILLA REAL, GRANADA.

gleaming in silks and jewels, with Christs clothed in petticoats. And if we did once visit the Cartuja, it satisfied our curiosity where other show churches were concerned. The word Cartuja hung upon the lips of every visitor at the Hotel Roma. Foreigners wrestled hopelessly with it. Spaniards repeated it tenderly, as if in love with its gasping gutturals. We never sat down to a meal that some one did not urge us to the enjoyment of its wonders. At last, in self-defense, we went. The Cartuja's architecture struck

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us as elaborate, its decoration as abandoned as the gush that had sent us to it. It had not even the amusing gaiety of Bohemia's rococo, but was pretentious and florid in a dull, vulgar way, more in keeping with gilded café or popular restaurant. But to this visit my record owes a place, since it was our one concession to the guide-book's commands. It pleased us better to forget the exaggerated, tortured flamboyance in the kindly twilight of churches the names of which we never troubled to ask.

But when all is said, in the end as in the beginning, for us the great charm of Granada was in the grove, with its cool shade, its soft green light, its incomparable outlook. Here was perpetual twilight when all the land beyond lay grilling in the sun. The chant of locusts was loud in the gardens of the Alhambra, loud the water-carrier's ceaseless cry of "Agua! agua fresca!» White-hot, the sky met the now snowless heights of the Sierra Nevada; as from an oven came the air that blew over the vega, burned and scorched the town's white houses, climbed its triple hill. Yet under the elms planted by the conquering Englishman there was always rest from blinding light and pitiless heat.

I think we never felt this more keenly than on the August evening which was to be our last. We were oppressed with the prospect of the return to the oven of the plains, and there was now no time for the tramp through the hills. We sat on a bench in an open space,

on the way to the Vermilion Towers, where, toward sunset, we could best watch the play of light and cloud on the Sierra Nevada, or look over the cactus and palms of the English consul's garden to the vega. It was somewhere down there that Boabdil gave his last sigh as he turned from Granada forever. We could have taken him by the hand, and sighed with him, partly for the sorrow, partly for the effort, of leaving so fair and well-shaded a hilltop. We had done none of the things we had planned; we had not even been to Alhama or San Fernando or Santa Fe, or any of the places with familiar and romantic names that are within such easy distance of Granada; but we would not have had it otherwise. We had come to know the Alhambra and its grove as no one can who has not slept there peacefully the long summer, while a world without still goes on toiling and troubling, busy about foolish things. Elizabeth Robins Pennell.

MR. KEEGAN'S ELOPEMENT.

I.

WITH PICTURES BY B. WEST CLINEDINST.

HE northeast wind was very fresh that morning, and drove the seas before it briskly; but the Denver went at each of them in her bulldog fashion, and buried her white nose in them, and showered the crests of those which were specially boisterous in glistening spray over her forecastle. In the east the October sun was just beginning to peep over the sea-line, while to the northward lay the great mountain island of Madeira, already changing, by the magic touch of the light, from a phantom gray to that living green so dear to the eyes of a seaman. Soon signs of life began to appear; a village could be made out nestling in each of the valleys which furrowed the mountain-side, while yellow villas dotted its wooded slopes. In a bight at the south base, white in the morning sunlight, lay the town of Funchal, in front of which, like a huge sentinel, knee-deep, stood a towering rock crowned with a fort, reminding one of a castle on a chess-board.

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forecastle, under the forwardeight-inch turret, with the collars of their pea-coats turned well up over their ears, taking a morning smoke. Mr. Keegan had a keen eye for the beautiful, and it was his wont on such occasions to sit in silence for as much as an hour at a time. The master-at-arms, being a 'tween-decks man, delighted in watching the seas break over the bows, although this amusement not infrequently cost him a wetting and a pipeful of tobacco.

Mr. Keegan was a young man with reddish hair and small, expressionless blue eyes, and his Christian name was Dennis. He had a round, full face, abnormally so on one side because of the large piece of navy plug which invariably distended it. I have said that he was chief boatswain's mate of the Denver, for the reason that he was so known at the department, and drew his pay as such. But, as a matter of fact, Mr. Keegan's status, and the scope of his influence on board that ship, would be as hard to define as the duties of the captain set forth in the new regulations. His friend the master-at-arms consulted him on all matters of importance; the junior officers of the ship never interfered with anything he might be doing; and the seniors showed unwonted deference to his opinions.

As the Denver drew more and more under the

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"I hear the navigator say,» the masterat-arms went on, «there ain't no doubt but what he gets his orders for home when we strikes in here.»

Mr. Keegan fell into reminiscence. "There's two cadet cruises I took with him, — him and Mr. Morgan,—and wild cruises they was, too. There ain't much I would n't do for both of them young fellers; they 're two of a kind, and then they ain't.>> But before Mr. Keegan could explain this apparent contradiction he was called upon to pipe all hands to breakfast. He watched the men reflectively as they filed below.

«Do you mind that English young lady as Mr. Pennington was consortin' with when we was here before, Chimmy, in the spring?»>

The master-at-arms recalled her well.

« Mark my words, Chimmy,» said Mr. Keegan, impressively, as he went down the hatch, «he 'll be takin' her home with him.»>

Now the master-at-arms was inclined to doubt this. He was a personal friend of the senhora who did the cooking at the villa where the young lady lived, and the senhora had told him a great deal about the affair in question. How Mr. Pennington and Mr. Morgan were in the habit of going to the villa almost every evening, and how Mr. Morgan talked to the young lady's father on the veranda, while Mr. Pennington and the young lady spent their time in the garden below or in the summer-house; and finally, a day or so before the ship sailed, how Mr. Pennington had asked her father a question (the character of which the senhora could only conjecture), and then had left the villa in haste. She had afterward overheard the young lady's father express himself on the subject of naval officers, against whom he seemed to be particularly prejudiced. All of this the master-at-arms had confided to Mr. Keegan at the time; but, nevertheless, Mr. Keegan had predicted trouble.

"He ain't goin' to heave to for the old one's blessin',» that worthy had said contemptuously; «not if I know Mr. Pennington, he ain't. He'll go back and get her when he gets a chance.» At that time the people of the Denver did not expect the ship to be ordered back to Madeira.

AFTERNOON found Mr. Keegan and the master-at-arms going ashore in a surf-boat. They both sat in the stern, and the buttons on their new mustering-clothes shone like bright-work. Mr. Keegan was more than usually silent and preoccupied, and when they arrived at the pier, instead of having

VOL. LII.-28.

his customary argument with the boatman over the fare, Mr. Keegan gave the man a dollar, greatly to the astonishment and indignation of his side partner, the master-atarms. Mr. Keegan paid no attention whatever to his friend's protestations, but climbed the stone steps, and led the way up the main street to the Plaza, where he turned into a wine-shop, and sat down at one of the tables.

"We're not drinkin' to-day, you Dago,» he said, in response to the smiling inquiry of the proprietor. «Porto some cigarrettos!» Thus having aired his Portuguese, and obtained the desired articles, Mr. Keegan produced a roll of bills from his pocket, which he had just received from the paymaster, and proceeded to count them over carefully.

«There, Chimmy,» he remarked, rolling his tobacco from one cheek to the other, as he laid the pile on the table; «I don't get full this time, nor you don't; what's more, I don't lend none of the bullies money. But if this here seventy-three dollars can help Mr. Pennington to get that there English young lady, and take her off in the packet to-night, he 's welcome to it; that's all.»> This was a very

long speech for Mr. Keegan to make. «Is he going to try it, Dennis?» asked the master-at-arms, incredulously.

«Is he goin' to try it!» Mr. Keegan repeated witheringly. «Ain't you ashamed, what's been three years with him, for that there remark? »

The master-at-arms puffed at his cigarette in silence, and evidently felt the force of the rebuke.

«Yes, Chimmy,» Mr. Keegan went on in a milder tone, «he is goin' to try it»; and then he added, with an air of great secrecy, «He is leavin' a good deal of the particulars to you and me.»

Whereupon he unfolded a plan to the master-at-arms, who could not but wonder at its wisdom and completeness. It would almost seem as if Mr. Keegan had conducted a similar elopement on his own account. Mr. Keegan's powers of locution were not great, but he had a remarkable knack of conveying his meaning, the more remarkable because his face was absolutely without expression, and he never used any gestures. Perhaps one of the secrets of his ability to express himself lay in the fact that he alternated in his methods of explanation, now putting his hearers to shame at their stupidity, now leaving out a palpable conclusion, that they might give themselves credit for unusual perception. In any case, he never said any more than he had to.

«Now, he concluded, when he had gone

into every detail, «you have got your sailin' orders, Chimmy. Get your friend, the senhora, to tell the young lady what I told you. We can't take no big trunks-nothin' but a small kit. I'll be makin' sure of a boat and a skypilot, and be here at two bells.>>

The master-at-arms went out into the Plaza, and hired a bulla-carta. A bulla-carta is in reality a covered sled, provided with curtains, and drawn by two oxen. For the proper management of these vehicles, according to Portuguese ideas, two men are necessary. One goes ahead, in order to check any ambitious intentions on the part of the oxen, and apparently does the guiding. The duties of the other are harder to define: he receives the fare incidentally, and urges on the oxen in those plaintive, wailing tones which he who has been to Madeira can never forget, and which incline him to believe that the Portuguese language is one of lamentation. As Mr. Keegan tersely remarked, everything is << on skates » in Madeira. The streets of Funchal are paved with small lava blocks, set on end, and polished to a degree that makes walking dangerous to people who wear the shoes of civilization. Hence the owners of the bullacartas do a thriving business with foreigners, especially up the slope, where a false step is fraught with no inconsiderable consequences. It was up the hillside, or rather up the first slopes of the mountain, that the villa to which the master-at-arms was going was situated. Few visit Madeira who do not take that delightful ride up the mountain on horseback, and experience the delirium of the coast down, over the polished stones, in a wicker sled. Ascending, the traveler looks from his saddle over the high yellow walls on each hand into inviting gardens of tropical luxuriance, their shade-trees often completely arching the way over his head. But the master-at-arms cared nothing about looking into the gardens, and had a sailor's prejudice against horses; he discreetly preferred the bulla-carta. Even the picturesque procession of wine-growers which he met coming down the mountain, with skins slung over their shoulders, made no more of an impression on him than if they had been a draft of new hands. He sat back behind the curtains of his bulla-carta, and smoked brown-paper cigarettes, and meditated on the gravity of his mission; and he wondered whether the senhora would look with favor on the plan. Only once, when he had to turn out for a fat ecclesiastic from the convent above, was he aroused from these reflections. The priest was descending at a pace which would have defied a trolley-car,

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but sat in his sled with as much equanimity as if he were pronouncing a benediction, his guide deftly balanced on the runners behind.

«He's sure swift for a holy father!» the master-at-arms exclaimed aloud, lifting the curtains in order to obtain a better view of the vanishing figure; «but Dennis ain't hirin' him for the ceremony-you can't trust them Dagos even for splicin'.»

It was almost dusk when the master-atarms recognized the back gate of Mr. Inglefield's villa, and directed the gentleman at the side to draw up, which he accomplished with a great deal of unnecessary noise. Thereupon the master-at-arms alighted, and designated a point a little higher up for the men to wait for him. Then he opened the gate, and cautiously entered the garden. He sat down under a banana-tree to hit upon some method of attracting the senhora's attention; for the hour was unusual for a call, and the senhora was undoubtedly engaged in the kitchen. As the villa was on a rather steep portion of the slope, the house was considerably higher than the garden, its broad piazza being among the tree-tops. Here was a predicament! If he waited until the senhora finished cooking the dinner, put on her evening gown, and came down to the little porch where she received her callers, all would be lost. Bearing in mind the sentiments concerning his profession which the owner of the villa had expressed at various times, it was out of the question for him to go to the senhora, as he would undoubtedly be seen by Mr. Inglefield from the veranda. While he was vainly trying to hit upon an expedient, wishing ardently the while that Mr. Keegan might have undertaken this matter himself, he heard the rustle of a woman's skirts coming down the path. His first impulse was to climb the tree, but on second thought he decided to sit still; it was getting dark, and he might not be seen where he was.

He had barely reached this decision when there appeared in the path, directly before him, a young girl. She was tall and fair, with that wealth of color peculiar to Englishwomen; and as she stood there in the twilight, shading her eyes with her hand, the masterat-arms was transported with admiration. From where she stood one could look through an opening in the trees far out into the harbor, and he had no doubt that fortune had thrown him in the way of Miss Inglefield herself, and that she was looking at the Denver. He rose, took off his cap, and coughed slightly to attract her attention. sound the girl dropped her hand quickly,

At the

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