The Opelousas journal. [volume] (Opelousas, La.) 1868-1878, 1874-05-01

| tuoHs Wnen you weary or your MOntere'
lovers, and wish to talk to me acros
the water; and-a kiss"
| Still no answer from the girl, whO
with eyes cast, down, strolled along b,
his side.
"Then l take it for granted that m,
prayers prevail, Maria ~
Her soft eyes were raised to his, ant
he was surprised to find how pale th'
face was, and how moist the rounded
cheek. He raised her lips to his with
half-sigh, and then, as if new though
| had suddenly struck him, said abruptly
half to himself and half to her:
Good God! it can't be so, Maria
Tell me-dO yOn love me?H
The wonderful passion in the full
brown eyes, so tender and .despairing
told him all !, and then, like a foolisE
young man, he took her in his arms
and swore all the oaths that all lovers
ave so often sworn and SO otter
rroken; and. when they strolled back
over the sands Maria's tears were gone
and James Gilmour clasped the hand OF
his promised wife.
This was all the romance in Maria's
life. The next day the Delight sailed
and for ten years neither ship nor super
cargo was heard of in Monterey. But
she never married. She had a strange
way OF every evening walking to the
hilltop where the old fort stood, and
looking wistfully out across the water
then sOrrOwfully and resignedly return
ing to her home, nursing her invalid
and sour tempered mother, and training
the roses about the adobe walls.
On this Christmas eve, Maria Ignacia,
kneeling before her old-fashioned en-
craving of the Madonna, thought of
the manger in Bethlehem centuries,
ago, and wondered sorrowfully if James
Gifmour was. enjoying in his English
home the Christmas tree and the mistle
toe, and all those games he had told
her of when they walked on the sands
ten years ago. And then her thoughts
went back to that June evening when
he kissed her lips and called her his
wife.
Boom! boom! boom! through the still
night air.
Maria opened her window and looked
out. A party of Portuguese whalers
went rapidly by, and she learned from
their excited exclamations that O ship
had gone on the Point PinOs rocks.
May God and the Virgin succor
them ~ she murmured, piously, as she
hurried to wrap her shawl around her,
and was soon in the street.
Every one was astir. Men on horse
back with ropes rode furiously along
the beach and toward the Point; the
whalers manned their boats, set their
sails, and sped before the blast through
the moonlit water. They were all too
late. The cruel, pointed rocks had torn
the ill-fated vessel to fragments; and
the breakers dallied with spar and mast,
now f1inglng them high up on the beach,
and again drawing them back to hurl
them once more against the brown
cliffs. But not single body did the
waves throw up that night.
Christmas Day dawned, and when
Maria Ignacia Gomez looked from her
window down to the crescent beach,
she saw a crowd of men standing about
something. They lifted it up and bore
it through, the street, and to her door,
for hers was the house nearest the
beach. K3T
lis he dead ~ she asked, fearfully.
"When we first saw him." said a
Whaler, " he was clinging to a spar, and
before we got the boat out he was
washed ashore. ss:
They laid him on a bed. His, dark
beard was full of sand and weeds, and
q white froth issued from his lips: a
finely built man handsome, no doubt,
when those eyes, now staring SO blindly,
had light and life, and those well-c1t
lips moved and smiled.
HfMaria--M Maria, what ails you 2n
She was standing by the bedside, her
hands crossed over her breast, her eyes
as fixed and vacant as the dead before
& - a INV fanlnvod IL sbo ,,aoanod lov;nor