Page:Under Dewey at Manila.djvu/45

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A FRUITLESS CHASE
25

sailed for Honolulu!" cried Captain Ponsberry, after he and his companions had made a brief tour of the Pali. "I promised to be back to the Columbia by seven o'clock, and I'm a man as never breaks my word."

"I'll have the team out in a jiffy," answered the youth, and rushed around to the stable. The horses had been left in harness, and it was an easy task to hook them up. He drove around to the front of the resort, the three clambered in, and with a farewell to Ralph Harmon, and a rather unnecessary crack of the whip upon Larry's part, they bowled off down the sweep of the road across which the stately palms were now casting long, wavering shadows.

It was a beautiful drive, that down the Nuuanu Valley and into Nuuanu avenue, past lovely homes that have a perpetual summer, homes hedged in by palms and cacti, and here and there a field of bamboo, with vines clustering everywhere. In two places they passed large cemeteries, surrounded by tall, gray walls, overgrown with moss and guarded by long rows of solemn-looking cypresses; and then they came whirling down into the town proper, now silent and almost deserted, for the time for business