THE TOWN. 99

 anxious to catch at once, under their blossoming
 shadows, the flash and ripple of the wonderful
 water. The flood of ineffable light, the lap and
 murmur of the wrinkled sea, were all the promise
 that his desire should be satisfied. There must
 have been a moment of passionate and joyous
 indifference to the hidden laughter of his sol-
 diers, whose possession of what he sought made
 them careless of his pathetic longing. Then
 came the bitterness of hope deferred. Eight
 weeks of search beneath the palms, of stooping
 to drink with trembling hand at every spring,
 of breathless waiting for that leap of the blood
 which was to stir the shrunken veins across his
 temples and light the old fire in his eyes; then,
 with disappointment tugging at his heart, to set
 sail again, steadying his lips with promises
 that he should yet find that for which Heaven
 was an alternative.
 After Ponce de Leon, came Diego Muruelo,
and then Fernandez de Cordova, who suffered
many things from the hands of savage men -
we are told; and, a little later, De Ayllon; one
by one, the last--the Sergeant has heard that