In that hospitable society of the "city of the fragrant streams," where
the dinner table seems to be the only rendezvous, save a garden party
now and then, a Tarrantella dance or a Government House ball, the fair
Priscilla met young Robert Adams, a native of her far away and almost
unknown home. The acquaintance blossomed into friendship and ripened
into love. The lover was accepted, and now a courtship of two years was
in three weeks to see them married. There were many disappointed youths
and envious of Robert Adams, but all took their misfortune as in the way
of the world, except young Amaral, who, in silence, had watched the
course of events and now hated the happy suitor with all the fierceness
of his Southern blood.

That night Robert Adams, unlike the conventional lover, but like a
healthy, light-hearted fellow, fell asleep without a sigh, listening to
the waves as they broke regularly on the stone embankment before his
window. In the room below, Dom Pedro walked until the early morning, no
beating of waves could lull him to sleep, for his head ached and his
eyes burned in the fever of jealousy. Thus he brooded over his loss till
the sun gilded the hermitage fort of Our Lady of Guia.


II.

The following day was Sunday, the liveliest, or rather the only day with
any life at all, in Macao, for the visitors from Hong Kong then go about
the city sight seeing to be ready for the early return of the steamboat
on Monday morning.

A pleasant spot, and one not often molested by visitors on account of
the somewhat toilsome climb required to reach it, is the church of Our