looked long and steadily at the miniature,
resolving in his mind that some day he would meet the owner of that
lovely face--a purpose for once in accord with that which the fates had
arranged for him, in the day when all things were arranged, the day of
the first beginning.

LXII

THE RETURN OF THE PILGRIMS

The last note-book entry bears date of October 11th:

At sea, somewhere in the neighborhood of Malta. Very stormy.

Terrible death to be talked to death. The storm has blown two small
land birds and a hawk to sea and they came on board. Sea full of
flying-fish.

That is all. There is no record of the week's travel in Spain, which a
little group of four made under the picturesque Gibraltar guide, Benunes,
still living and quite as picturesque at last accounts. This side-trip
is covered in a single brief paragraph in the Innocents, and the only
account we have of it is in a home letter, from Cadiz, of October 24th:

We left Gibraltar at noon and rode to Algeciras (4 hours), thus
dodging the quarantine--took dinner, and then rode horseback all
night in a swinging trot, and at daylight took a caleche (a-wheeled
vehicle), and rode 5 hours--then took cars and traveled till twelve
at night. That landed us at Seville, and we were over the hard part
of our trip and somewhat tired. Since then we have taken things
comparatively easy, drifting around from one town to another and
attracting a good deal of attention--for I guess strangers do not
wander through Andalusia and the other southern provinces of Spain
often. The country is precisely what it was when Don Quixote and
Sancho Panza were possible characters.

But I see now what the glory of Spain must have been when it was
under Moorish domination. No, I will not say that--but then when
one is carried away, infatuated, entranced, with the wonders of the
Alhambra and the supernatural beauty of the Alcazar, he is apt to
overflow with admiration for the splendid intellects that created
them.

We may wish that he had left us a chapter of that idyllic journey, but it
will never be written now. A night or two before the vessel reached New
York there was the usual good-by assembly, and for this occasion, at Mrs.
Severance's request, Mark Twain wrote some verses. They were not
especially notable, for meter and rhyme did not come easy to him, but one
prophetic stanza is worth remembe