connected us with another island, gradually drowning beneath its
waters several rusty old hulls. A little rocky wooded isle to the
left cut off the future entrance to the canal. Some miles away
across the bay on the lower slope of a long hill drowsed the city
of Panama in brilliant sunshine; and beyond, the hazy mountainous
country stretched southwestward to be lost in the molten horizon.
On a distant hill some Indian was burning off a patch of jungle to
plant his corn.

Meanwhile the Lieutenant and the Corporal had settled some
Lombroso proposition and fallen to reciting poetry. The former,
who was evidently a lover of melancholy, mouth-filling verse, was
declaiming "The Raven" to the open sea. I listened in wonder. Was
this then police talk? I had expected rough, untaught fellows
whose conversation at best would be pornographic rather than
poetic. My astonishment swelled to the bursting point when the
Colombian not only caught up the poem where the Lieutenant left
off but topped it off with that peerless translation by Bonalde
the Venezuelan, beginning:

Una fosca media noche, cuando en tristes reflexiones
Sobre mas de un raro infolio de olvidados cronicones--

And just then the quarantine launch swung around the neighboring
island. I tightened my horse belt and dragged the "Colt" around
within easy reach; and a moment later the doctor and his bulking
understudy stepped ashore--alone.

"They didn't come," said the former; "they were not allowed to
leave their own country."