The sentinel seemed dissatisfied. Just then Señor Curriel, the fiery little Minister of War, rode up and gave the watchword. The sleepy soldier called his two companions from the guardhouse, and the three oddly equipped figures, dressed in seersucker, with palm-leaf hats, stood at attention as we clattered through the gateway and out to the bridle path that led to San Cristoval. The journey was full of small adventures; we were caught in a violent thunder storm and drenched to the skin, my saddle girth broke, my reins gave out and were replaced by a pair made from a clothesline borrowed at an _estancia_, where we halted for a few minutes. So much stands out clear, in the full limelight of memory; the rest of the trip is dim and shadowy. I remember that San Cristoval was a poor little place, with a miserable apology for a hotel where we ate; that we slept in hammocks in a native _bohie_, a hut made of palm wood and thatched with palm leaves; that we were enchanted with the beauty of the country, the friendliness of the people, and the glory of the tropical moonlight nights. During Holy Week we haunted the old gray stone cathedral, where for centuries the body of Columbus had lain beneath the chancel. The ceremonies of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday were full of interest, for I had never before been inside a Catholic church. Shortly after our arrival, the _Nantasket_ came to Santo Domingo, bringing Lieutenant DeLong and the other young officers whose acquaintance we had made on the _Tybee_. We gave a ball for the officers and the townspeople, the large rooms of the palace serving excellently for the festivities. The American officers danced with the pretty Dominican girls, who wore fireflies in their dark hair for jewels; for ribbons garlands of flowers twined about their waists and shoulders. The day after the ball I experienced my first earthquake. It was a breathless afternoon, and I was taking the inevitable siesta. As I lay asleep under my mosquito bar, I heard a low rumbling sound, unlike anything I had ever known before. I recognized it as instinctively as the horses screaming in their stalls below. I sprang up and rushed to the open corridor to see the great stone columns shaking like palm trees in a wind. That night I saw visions; the figure of a nun stood for a moment at the foot of my bed, looked at me intently, then vanished. Her place was taken by a young soldier with a mass of blond hair blown back like a plume; he too looked hard at me, then melted from my sight; last I saw the face of a friend lying in her coffin. When the _Tybee_ arrived with mails from home, she brought the news that this friend had died.