DBIx-TextIndex

 view release on metacpan or  search on metacpan

testdata/encantadas.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

from Hunilla's eye.

The stranger had given a blithesome promise, and anchored it with oaths,
but oaths and anchors equally will drag; naught else abides on fickle earth
but unkept promises of joy. Contrary winds from out unstable skies, or
contrary moods of his more varying mind, or shipwreck and sudden death in
solitary waves -- whatever was the cause, the blithe stranger never was
seen again.

Yet, however dire a calamity was here in store, misgivings of it ere due
time never disturbed the Cholos' busy mind, now all intent upon the
toilsome matter which had brought them hither. Nay, by swift doom coming
like the thief at night, ere seven weeks went by, two of the little party
were removed from all anxieties of land or sea. No more they sought to gaze
with feverish fear, or still more feverish hope, beyond the present's
horizon line, but into the furthest future their own silent spirits sailed.
By persevering labor beneath that burning sun, Felipe and Truxill had
brought down to their hut many scores of tortoises, and tried out the oil,
when, elated with their good success, and to reward themselves for such
hard work, they, too hastily, made a catamaran, or Indian raft, much used
on the Spanish main, and merrily started on a fishing trip, just without a

testdata/encantadas.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

the beach, its once jagged ends rubbed smoothly even as by sandpaper, its
golden glazing gone. Long ground between the sea and land, upper and nether
stone, the unvarnished substance was filed bare, and wore another polish
now, one with itself, the polish of its agony. Circular lines at intervals
cut all round this surface, divided it into six panels of unequal length.
In the first were scored the days, each tenth one marked by a longer and
deeper notch; the second was scored for the number of seafowl eggs for
sustenance, picked out from the rocky nests; the third, how many fish had
been caught from the shore; the fourth, how many small tortoises found
inland; the fifth, how many days of sun; the sixth, of clouds; which last,
of the two, was the greater one. Long night of busy numbering, misery's
mathematics, to weary her too-wakeful soul to sleep; yet sleep for that was
none.

The panel of the days was deeply worn -- the long tenth notches half
effaced, as alphabets of the blind. Ten thousand times the longing widow
had traced her finger over the bamboo -- dull flute, which, played on, gave
no sound -- as if counting birds flown by in air would hasten tortoises
creeping through the woods.

After the one hundred and eightieth day no further mark was seen; that last

testdata/encantadas.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

"We cannot take them all, Hunilla; our supplies are short; the winds are
unreliable; we may be a good many days going to Tombez. So take those you
have, Hunilla, but no more."

She was in the boat; the oarsmen, too, were seated; all save one, who stood
ready to push off and then spring himself. With the sagacity of their race,
the dogs now seemed aware that they were in the very instant of being
deserted upon a barren strand. The gunwales of the boat were high; its prow
-- presented inland -- was lifted; so, owing to the water, which they
seemed instinctively to shun, the dogs could not well leap into the little
craft. But their busy paws hard scraped the prow, as it had been some
farmer's door shutting them out from shelter in a winter storm. A clamorous
agony of alarm. They did not howl, or whine; they all but spoke.

"Push off! Give way!" cried the mate. The boat gave one heavy drag and
lurch, and next moment shot swiftly from the beach, turned on her heel, and
sped. The dogs ran howling along the water's marge, now pausing to gaze at
the flying boat, then motioning as if to leap in chase, but mysteriously
withheld themselves, and again ran howling along the beach. Had they been
human beings, hardly would they have more vividly inspired the sense of
desolation. The oars were plied as confederate feathers of two wings. No

testdata/encantadas.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

vigilance. Passing through a narrow way, and perceiving his leader quite
off his guard, the Negro, powerful fellow, suddenly grasps him in his arms,
throws him down, wrests his musketoon from him, ties his hands with the
monster's own cord, shoulders him, and returns with him down to the boat.
When the rest of the party arrive, Oberlus is carried on board the ship.
This proved an Englishman, and a smuggler, a sort of craft not apt to be
overcharitable. Oberlus is severely whipped, then handcuffed, taken ashore,
and compelled to make known his habitation and produce his property. His
potatoes, pumpkins, and tortoises, with a pile of dollars he had hoarded
from his mercantile operations, were secured on the spot. But while the too
vindictive smugglers were busy destroying his hut and garden, Oberlus makes
his escape into the mountains, and conceals himself there in impenetrable
recesses, only known to himself, till the ship sails, when he ventures
back, and by means of an old file which he sticks into a tree, contrives to
free himself from his handcuffs.

Brooding among the ruins of his hut, and the desolate clinkers and extinct
volcanoes of this outcast isle, the insulted misanthrope now meditates a
signal revenge upon humanity, but conceals his purposes. Vessels still
touch the Landing at times, and by-and-by Oberlus is enabled to supply them
with some vegetables.