Then it seemed to me that I stood in a place of burial, and that, in some inexplicable way, I could observe the processes of that dark alchemy by which flesh is transmuted into leaf and fruit,--by which blood is transformed into blossom, as in the old Greek myths, and into the living substance also of those creatures, gem-winged, jewel-eyed, that feed upon the juices, the honey, and the fruit of graveyard flora. Then suddenly the mystery of the blonde name again came before me--this time upon a graven square of marble; and in a little while I thought I knew the story of the dead; for this impossible and nameless legend shaped itself in my sleep. VULTUR AURA _June_ 2, 188- ... _San Juan de los Pinos_:--'Saint John of the Pines,' That was the name of the ancient fort. And in those days the names of the bastions also were names of the Evangelists and the Apostles. There is a ghostliness in the name! Why Saint John _of the pines_? Was this low shore beshadowed in the sixteenth century by pines tremendous, immemorial, more ancient than man,--through whose colossal aisles the sea-gusts spake with utterance vague and vast as the Wind of the Spirit? Did the roar of the far-off reef, the mutterings of the mighty woods, evoke for Spanish piety dim fancies of the Voices of Patmos, of the Thunders and the Trumpetings? It was a timber stronghold only,--that forgotten fort, thus placed beneath the protection of weird Saint John,--a rampart-work of pine. Then were discovered the virtues of the coquina,--that wonderful shell-rock which seems marble half formed, half crystallized, under the pressure of shallow seas; and out of it was Fort San Marco built,--very solidly, very mathematically, very slowly,--by the labor of more than a century and the expenditure of thirty millions of good Spanish dollars. Two hundred and fifty years ago they began to build it; to-day it stands well-nigh as strong as in the time when Oglethorpe's English cannon played on it in vain. Now the profane Americano, who putteth no trust in saints, but in his own strength only, calleth it Fort Marion; and the lizards dwell in it; and the spider weaves her tapestries above its chapel-altar; and the dust is deep in the holy-water fonts, where Catholic swordsmen once dipped their sinewy hands. But over the great sally-port you may still discern the Arms of Spain,--the Crown, the Shield, the triple turrets of Castile, the rampant Lions of Leon, and, encircling these, the sculptured Order of the Fleece of Gold. Salty winds have chapped the relief;--the fingers of the rain have worn it down as the smooth face of a coin is worn;--the wings of Time have brushed away the edges of the tablet,--and besmirched the Fleece of Gold,--and obliterated, as in irony, the title of the King, and the beginning of the solemn inscription,--REYNANDO EN ESPANA. The REY is gone forever!--syllable and potentate! Underneath the pendant Lamb,--now black,--there are dark stains of drippings,--as of blood