llet, where ladies and gentlemen
pirouetted and made love in dumb motions: these attractions were
faithfully described and freely offered to the dazzled multitude. In
vain a clown tried to be facetious, shouted himself hoarse, and blew a
trumpet until his face grew dark. Bells rang and drums beat--the crowd
did not respond.

We left them to it, not tempted by the unseen. Our day for shows and
illusions was over. This was not what we had expected of Gerona the
beautiful and ancient. If we felt a slight grievance, who could wonder?

Presently we found ourselves in the darkness of night at the edge of the
river. There was more water here, no dry bed visible. Away to the left,
as far as one could gather, stretched the open country. Tall trees,
sombre and mysterious, waved and rustled behind us. Evidently this was
one of the public parks or promenades that exist just outside so many
Spanish towns, refuges from the mid-day sun and evening glare; Elysian
fields for those disembodied souls who pace to and fro to the music of
love's young dream; vows of eternal fidelity more or less writ in sand.

The water looked cold and calm and tranquil. Rushes grew by the side and
the wind whispered through them. Pan was playing his pipes. Lights
twinkled from the windows of many a house down by the river. A lurid
glow still hung in the sky, and beneath it, in front of us to the right,
we traced the marvellous outlines of the town. Above all, crowning the
heights, stretching heavenwards like mighty monsters, uprose the towers
of the cathedral and other churches. Almost unearthly was the scene in
its gloom and grandeur of mystery. Far down on the dry bed of the river
the chestnut-roasters danced like demons about their holocausts. No
clown need cry the virtues of their wares; the demand was equal to the
supply, and both were unlimited.

We hardly knew how we found our way here or found it back again.
Instinct guides one on these occasions and seldom fails as it failed in
the midnight streets of Toledo. But a conjuror would be lost in those
narrow wynds, which all resemble each other and are without plan or
sequence.

[Illustration: BANKS OF THE ONAR: GERONA.]

To-night it was plainer sailing. Afar off we heard the clown bidding
people to his feast of good things. Like the siren in stormy weather it
told us which way to steer, what to avoid. We passed well on the
outskirts of the gaping crowd and found ourselves on the bridge: the
dark