“It looks venerable, but it only dates back about one hundred years,” said John. “Where the old Dons of two or three centuries ago buried their dead, no one knows; perhaps they sent them all back home, Chinese fashion. An old bell which now hangs in the cathedral is said to have come from here; it bears the inscription, ‘Sancte Joseph, ora pro nobis; D. 1682,’ and is probably the oldest bell in the country.” “And what was it doing here?” said Mokes, with the air of a historian. “There was once an Indian village here, called Tolomato, and a mission chapel; the bell is supposed to have come from the chapel.” “Is that the chapel?” asked Mokes, pointing to a small building on the far side of the cemetery. He was getting on famously, he thought, quite historical, and that sort of thing. “No; that is a chapel erected in 1853 by Cubans to the memory of Father Varela. The old Tolomato chapel was--was destroyed.” “How?” inquired Mokes. John glanced toward Sara with a smile. “Oh, go on,” she said, “I am quite prepared! A massacre, of course!” “Yes, a massacre. The Indians stole into the chapel by night, and finding Father Corpa engaged in his evening devotions, they slew him at the altar, and threw his body out into the forest, where it could never afterward be found. The present cemetery marks the site of the old mission, and bears its name.” Mokes, having covered himself with glory, now led the way out, and the party turned homeward. Sara and I lingered to read the Latin inscription over the chapel door, “Beati mortui qui in Domino moriuntur.” John beckoned us toward a shadowed corner where stood a lonely tomb, the horizontal slab across the top bearing no date, and only the initials of a name, “Here lies T----F----.” “Poor fellow!” said John, “he died by his own hand, alone, at night, on this very spot: a young Frenchman, I was told, but I know nothing more.” “Is not that enough?” I said. “There is a whole history in those words.” “There was once a railing separating this tomb from the other graves, as something to be avoided and feared,” said John; “but time, or perhaps the kind hand of charity, has removed the barrier: charity that can pity the despairing, suffering, human creature whose only hope came to this--to die!” Happening to glance at Sara, I saw her eyes full of tears, and in spite of her effort to keep them back, two great drops rolled down and fell on the dark slab; John saw them, and turned away instantly. “Why, Sara!” I said, moved almost to tears myself by sudden sympathy. “Don’t say any thing, please,” answered Sara. “There, it is all over.”