Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/299

Rh the violin and the flageolet very sweetly, and with excellent musical skill and feeling, all of them gay and sportive melodies. They continued this till towards midnight. From three places only on the shore were lights visible. The one was from an orange plantation belonging to a widow lady, the second from Enterprise, the third from the home of the colonist, the pair of turtle-doves, No. 3; and this burned remarkably bright in the growing darkness of evening. The whole region was low; no single object stood forth pre-eminently. A few clouds floated, or rather lay, like small islands on the western horizon, and melted by degrees into evening glow. I endeavoured in vain among them to discover some symbolic, poetical shape; the highest that I could arrive at was a lady in a quaker's bonnet, sitting on a hay-stack. She and all the other clouds changed themselves finally into a herd of little pigs and then vanished. The lights at Enterprise, and at the widow lady's, were extinguished. Every breath of wind had laid itself to rest; everything on the shore was dark; the light alone in the colonist's home still burnt, but dimmer, and finally it also was extinguished. But I saw it burning in the house yet. Towards midnight the negroes music was silent also, but the alligators, and the whip-poor-wills continued their duet the whole night through.

I could sleep but very little, although I felt perfectly well. But the spirits of the air called me, and I was obliged to rise again and again, and go out upon our little piazza aft of the vessel, into which the doors of the saloon opened, and there, attired merely in my white night dress, I contemplated again and again the tranquil scene. And still at early peep of dawn, when the stars grew dim, and only the morning star stood bright above the bright mirror of the lake, was continued the duet between the birds and the alligators. When the sun rose they became silent, and other birds then began to sing, and fishes to