E-text prepared by Sankar Viswanathan, Suzanne Shell, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations in colour. See 28008-h.htm or 28008-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/8/0/0/28008/28008-h/28008-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/8/0/0/28008/28008-h.zip) UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS by Elizabeth Robins Author of "The Magnetic North," "The Open Question" etc. Illustrated & Decorated by John Rae [Illustration: "FRUITS AND FLOWERS WERE SHOWERED UPON US"--_Page 3_] New York Frederick A. Stokes Company Publishers Copyright, 1907, by Frederick A. Stokes Company October, 1907 _Contents_ PAGE I. OUR AGREEABLE FELLOW PASSENGER 1 II. MY INTERPRETER AT MAZATLAN 39 III. I AM LECTURED 65 IV. I DRINK COCOANUT MILK AND GO FISHING FOR PEARLS 101 V. THE BARON IS CRAZY WITH MADNESS 133 VI. THE BARANCA 165 VII. THE INCA EYE 199 _Illustrations_ "FRUITS AND FLOWERS WERE SHOWERED UPON US" _Frontispiece_ "LOOK, SENORITA!" _Facing page_ 48 "THE BARON HAS FOUND A PEARL!" " " 112 "YOU MUST TAKE ME BACK!" " " 210 CHAPTER I [Illustration: Chapter One] OUR AGREEABLE FELLOW PASSENGER In the same spirit in which a solicitous mamma or benevolent middle-aged friend will sometimes draw forth from the misty past some youthful misdeed, and set the faded picture up before a girl's eyes, framed in fiery retribution--for an object lesson and a terrible example--so will I, benevolent, if not middle-aged, put before the eyes of my sisters a certain experience of mine. I expect my little act of self-abasement for the instruction of my sex to have this merit: the picture I will show you is not dim with age, and not cut and cramped to fit the frame of a special case. The colours are hardly dry, and both picture and tale are quite unvarnished. I am a plain American girl of twenty. I am not so plain, as I come to think of it, as one or two others I know--not being distinguished even by unusual or commanding ugliness. I spent last winter in San Francisco with relatives, and intended returning home as I came--overland. But the invalid friend who was asked to chaperon me back to New York, was advised by her physicians to take the trip by sea _via_ Panama, for health's sake, and I was easily induced to change my arrangements and bear her company.