prepared for
the descent upon England. Sir Francis Drake himself remarks that 'the
sight of the terrible fires were to us very pleasant, and mitigated the
burden of our continual travail, wherein we were busied for two nights
and one day, in discharging, firing, and lading of provisions.'

* * *

It is a curious thing to see entirely deserted a place of entertainment,
where great numbers of people are in the habit of assembling. A theatre
by day, without a soul in it, gives me always a sensation of the
ridiculous futility of things; and a public garden towards evening
offers the same emotion. On the morrow I was starting for Africa; I
watched the sunset from the quays of Cadiz, the vapours of the twilight
rise and envelop the ships in greyness, and I walked by the _alamadas_
that stretch along the bay till I came to the park. The light was
rapidly failing and I found myself alone. It had quaint avenues of
short palms, evidently not long planted, and between them rows of yellow
iron chairs arranged with great neatness and precision. It was there
that on Sunday I had seen the populace disport itself, and it was full
of life then, gay and insouciant. The fair ladies drove in their
carriages, and the fine gentlemen, proud of their English clothes,
lounged idly. The chairs were taken by all the lesser fry, by stout
mothers, dragons attendant on dark-eyed girls, and their lovers in broad
hats, in all the gala array of the _flamenco_. There was a joyous
clamour of speech and laughter; the voices of Spanish women are harsh
and unrestrained; the park sparkled with colour, and the sun caught the
fluttering of countless fans.

For those blithe people it seemed that there was no morrow: the present
was there to be enjoyed, divine and various, and the world was full of
beauty and of sunshine; merely to live was happiness enough; if there
was pain or sorrow it served but to enhance the gladness. The hurrying
hours for a while had ceased their journey. Life was a cup of red wine,
and they were willing to drink its very dregs, a brimming cup in which
there was no bitterness, but a joy more thrilling than the gods could
give in all their paradise.

But now I walked alone between the even rows of chairs. The little palms
were so precise, with their careful foliage, that they did not look like
real trees; the flower-beds were very stiff and neat, and now and then a
pine stood out, erect and formal as if it were a cardboard tree from