It was now about midnight, the fire waxed low, and "the Friar" was sound asleep. What connection was there between these considerations and her of whom I was thinking? Who knows? I arose and sat up, listening with eager ear to the low long breathings of the Friar, who, with his round bullet-head pillowed on a pine-log, slept soundly; the gentle hum of the leaves, scarcely moved by the night wind, and the distant sound of the falling water, were lullabies to his slumber. It was a gorgeous night of stars; the sky was studded with bright orbs in all the brilliant lustre of a southern latitude. The fireflies, too, danced and glittered on every side, leaving traces of the phosphoric light on the leaves as they passed. The air was warm and balmy with "the rich odor of the cedar and the acacia,"--just such a night as one would like to pass in "converse sweet" with some dear friend, mingling past memories with shadowy dreams, and straying along from bygones to futurity. I crept over stealthily to where the Friar lay: a lively fear prevailed with me that he might be feigning sleep, and so I watched him long and narrowly. No, it was an honest slumber; the deep guttural of his mellow throat was beyond counterfeiting. I threw a log upon the fire carelessly and with noise, to see if it would awake him; but he only muttered a word or two that sounded like Latin, and slept on. I now strained my eyes towards the hammock, of which, under the shadow of a great sycamore-tree, I could barely detect the outline through the leaves. Should I be able to discern her features, were I to creep over? What a difficult question, and how impossible to decide by mere reasoning upon it! What if I were to try? It was a pure piece of curiosity,--curiosity of the most harmless kind. I had been, doubtless, just as eager to scan the Friar's lineaments, if he had taken the same pains to conceal them from me. It was absurd, besides, to travel with a person and not see their face. Intercourse was a poor thing without that reciprocity which looks convey. I 'll have a peep, at all events, said I, summing up to myself all my arguments; and with this resolve I moved cautiously along, and, making a wide circuit, came round to the foot of the sycamore, at the side most remote from the Friar.