The hour of separation came at length. Three days had elapsed in the delights of the Floridian Eden. Our Frenchmen were compelled to tear themselves away. The objects for which they came had been gratified. The bounty of the lovely Iracana had filled with grain their boats. Her subjects had gladly borne the burdens from the fields to the vessels, while the strangers revelled with the noble and the lovely. But their revels were now to end. The garrison at La Caroline, it was felt, waited with hunger, as well as hope and anxiety for their return, and they dared to delay no longer. The parting was more difficult than they themselves had fancied. All had been well entertained, and all made happy by their entertainment. If Alphonse D'Erlach had been favored with the sweet attentions of a queen, Captain La Vasseur had been rendered no less happy by the smiles of the loveliest among her subjects. He had touched her heart also, quite as sensibly as had the former that of Iracana. Similarly fortunate had been their followers. Authority had ceased to restrain in a region where there was no danger of insubordination, and our Frenchmen, each in turn, from the sergeant to the sentinel, had been honored by regards of beauty, such as made him forgetful, for the time, of precious memories in France. Nor had these favors, bestowed upon the Frenchmen, provoked the jealousy of the numerous Indian chieftains who were present, and who shared in these festivities. It joyed them the rather to see how frankly the white men could unbend themselves to unwonted pleasures, throwing aside that jealous state, that suspicious vigilance, which, hitherto, had distinguished their bearing in all their intercourse with the Indians. "Women of Iracana too sweet," said the gigantic son of Satouriova, Athore, to Captain La Vasseur, as the parties, each with a light and laughing damsel in his grasp, whirled beside each other in the mystic maze of the dance. "I much love these women of Iracana," said Apalou, as fierce a warrior in battle, as ever swore by the altars of the Indian Moloch. "I glad you love them too, like me. Iracana woman good for too much love! They make great warrior forget his enemies." "Ha!" said one addressing D'Erlach, "You have beautiful women in your country, like Iracana, the Queen?"