"I don't know, sir," said Lewis.

"Well, we'll just climb on board that big double-funnel that came in
to-day and leave it to her. What do you say?"

They went south. Four days later, in the early morning, Lewis was
wakened by a bath-robe hurled at his head.

"Put that on and come up on deck quick!" commanded his father.

Lewis gasped when he reached the deck. They were just entering the
harbor. On the left, so close that it seemed to threaten them, loomed
the Sugar-Loaf. On the right, the wash of the steamer creamed on the
rocks of Santa Cruz. Before them opened the mighty bay, dotted with a
hundred islands, some crowned with foliage, others with gleaming, white
walls, and one with an aspiring minaret. Between water and sky stretched
the city. There was no horizon, for the jagged wall of the Organ
Mountains towered in a circle into the misty blue. Heaven and earth were
one.

A white line of surf-foam ran along all the edge of the bay. Languorous
Aphrodite of the cities of the world, Rio de Janeiro lay naked beyond
that line, and gloried. Like a dream of fair woman, her feet plunged in
foam, her body reclining against the heights, her arms outstretched,
green hills for her pillows, her diadem the shining mountain-peaks,
queen of the cities of the earth by the gift of Almighty God, she
gleamed beneath the kiss of dawn.

Leighton drew a long, long breath.