The Argosy — page 153: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

138 In Sunny Climes. is always in perfect order; that roses bloom and perfume the air above the spot of one who was sweeter and fairer than the rose, purer than the lily. How well I remember her lovely face, and her graceful, child-like form.—But a truce to sentiment and sad recollec- tions,” he cried abruptly. ‘*' We shall all go in turn through that dark, mysterious valley, take that awful unknown journey. Let us come back to the present.” And at that very moment an incident occurred which put all our sentiment to flight and brought us sharply back to earth and the present time. What I had fancied might happen did happen. One of the sleeping figures, not twenty yards from us, must have rolled over. We heard a great splash and plunge into the water below. The surface grew agitated, and in a minute a dark form was striking out for the neighbouring steps. Luckily he could swim, and was quite a boy, and when he came up to terra firma, looking like a drowned rat and shivering as if it were mid winter and snow lay on the hills and an east wind blew chillingly, he seemed none the worse for the adventure. There had been a shout when he fell, and two of our waiters at the door of the hotel had run over to see what had happened. ‘*T have been here ten years, sir, and never saw that before,” said one of them tous. ‘They sleep on the edge of the precipice, but they never roll over.” ‘How is it?” asked Mauleverer. ‘‘ People turn in bed, why do these men not turn upon the wall? Half a turn would be quite enough to send them down.” The waiter shrugged his shoulders with the expressiveness only known to foreigners. “TI don’t know, sir. The French say, ‘Il y a un Dieu pour les enfants et les ivrognes.’ I suppose there is a Providence over all careless people. The Holy Virgin is good and Heaven is watchful,” he added, crossing himself. And going up to the half-drowned lad, he asked him how he came to roll over and take an involuntary cold bath. We did not stay for the answer, but passing down the Lung’ Arno, followed the course of the bending stream. It was a glorious night, and the stars flashed and scintillated in the dark blue heavens. The town was hushed in repose, and we had the whole broad and beautiful thoroughfare to ourselves. The surrounding heights were dark and shadowy. Nothing but the gleaming of a light here and there betrayed that humanity was stirring, and human lives were running their little race ‘until the evening.” We crossed a bridge and went up the heights, and the town lay at our feet ; a dark im- penetrable mass, between which the flowing river might be discerned by its dark, circling line, relieved here and there by flashes of reflected light. The monuments of the town, the dome of the cathedral uprose in undefined outlines. The fair beauty of Florence was veiled in darkness, : CORNICE OOOMKS ne)