296 HOMEWARD BOUND. 



fill w'lien wo rowed back fi'oin tlio first (Uiacliaro cave. And 

 it was all over. 



We are siicli stuff' as dreams are made of. And as in a 

 dream, or rather as part of a dream, and myself a phantom 

 and a play-actor, I looked out over the side, and saw on the 

 right the black walls of Monos, on the left the black walls 

 of Huevos a gate even grander, though not as narrow^, as 

 that of ^lonos ; and the Umbrella Eock, capped with Mata- 

 palo and Cactus, and night-blowdng Cereus, dim in the dusk. 

 And now we were outside. The roar of the surf, the tumble 

 of the sea, the rush of the trade-wind, told us that at once. 

 Out in the great sea, with Grenada, and kind friends 

 in it, ahead; not to be seen or reached till morning light. 

 But we looked astern and not ahead. We could see into 

 and through the gap in Huevos, through which we had 

 tried to reach the Guacharo cave. Inside that notch in 

 the cliffs must be the wooded bay, whence we picked up 

 the shells among the fallen leaves and flowers. From under 

 that dark w^all beyond it the Guacharos must be just trooping 

 out for their nightly forage, as they had trooped out since 

 He alone who made them knows how long. The outline of 

 Huevos, the outline of Monos, were growing lower and greyer 

 astern. A long, ragged haze, far loftier than that on the 

 starboard quarter, signified the Xorthern ^Mountains ; and far 

 off on the port quarter lay a flat bank of cloud, amid whicli 



