The Wakulla Volcano Archive

The old-fashioned Capitol building stood on
nearly the highest swell. Just below it, on the
hither side, the old inn, the City Hotel, with
all its little gabled roof-windows and dilapidated
verandas, slept among its trees. Farther north-
ward the low lines of business housed, the for-
saken cotton yards and warehouses, and then
the little market-house and sunny square ; still
beyond, and a little higher, the broad-winged,
roomy, old residences looking out from among
the grandest and beautifulest trees in the world.
They could see the color of the foliage change
with many a scintillation, as the waves of the

"And see! Look!" she continued. " Wa-

He followed her hand with his eyes, and saw,
far in the south-east, a slim, mysterious, dark
column of smoke spouting straight up to the
sky. It seemed actually to strike the empy-
rean, and rebound from its surface in dense

"It is a great mystery, --- that lonely smoke-
pot in the vast Wakulla swamp," said Cauthorne
musingly: "why doesn't some one undertake

"I don't know," she replied. Then she
added quickly, "Oh, Judge White did try it,

"I was talking with Col. Brevard and Mayor
Lewis about it yesterday," said Cauthorne;
"and I have written to the proprietors of our
paper suggesting that they send me to look

"You will find nothing," she said, with a
little contempt of the scheme in her voice ;
"there is nothing to find. Judge White says
the swamp is absolutely impenetrable. And
see, while we've been talking the smoke has
vanished!"

Sure enough, it had. Cauthorne turned to
Lucie with a sort of incredulous cloud on his

"You will be fading from my sight next, and
a ghost will come out of the Murat palace
yonder. By the way, tell me something of

"Oh! I know absolutely nothing about them.
They have fallen out of the memory of most
people here. The war was such a sponge. It