a
powder magazine, with a little square trench round it, and steps down to
the door. Charker and I were looking in at the gate, which was not
guarded; and I had said to Charker, in reference to the bit like a powder
magazine, "That's where they keep the silver you see;" and Charker had
said to me, after thinking it over, "And silver ain't gold. Is it,
Gill?" when the beautiful young English lady I had been so bilious about,
looked out of a door, or a window--at all events looked out, from under a
bright awning. She no sooner saw us two in uniform, than she came out so
quickly that she was still putting on her broad Mexican hat of plaited
straw when we saluted.

"Would you like to come in," she said, "and see the place? It is rather
a curious place."

We thanked the young lady, and said we didn't wish to be troublesome;
but, she said it could be no trouble to an English soldier's daughter, to
show English soldiers how their countrymen and country-women fared, so
far away from England; and consequently we saluted again, and went in.
Then, as we stood in the shade, she showed us (being as affable as
beautiful), how the different families lived in their separate houses,
and how there was a general house for stores, and a general reading-room,
and a general room for music and dancing, and a room for Church; and how
there were other houses on the rising ground called the Signal Hill,
where they lived in the hotter weather.

"Your officer has been carried up there," she said, "and my brother, too,
for the better air. At present, our few residents are dispersed over
both spots: deducting, that is to say, such of our number as are always
going to, or coming from, or staying at, the Mine."

("_He_ is among one of those parties," I thought, "and I wish somebody
would knock his head off.")

"Some of our married ladies live here," she said, "during at least half
the year, as lonely as widows, with their children."

"Many children here, ma'am?"

"Seventeen. There are thirteen married ladies, and there are eight like
me."

There were not eight like her--there was not one like her--in the world.
She meant single.

"Which, with about thirty Englishmen of various degrees," said the young
lady, "form the little colony now on the Island. I don't count the
sailors, for they don't belong to us. Nor the soldiers," she gave us a
gracious smile when she spoke of the soldiers, "for the same reason."

"Nor the Sambos, ma'am,"