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testdata/encantadas.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

It was a narrow chance. For when in crossing the isle Hunilla gained the
high land in the center, she must then for the first have perceived our
masts, and also marked that their sails were being loosed, perhaps even
heard the echoing chorus of the windlass song. The strange ship was about
to sail, and she behind. With all haste she now descends the height on the
hither side, but soon loses sight of the ship among the sunken jungles at
the mountain's base. She struggles on through the withered branches, which
seek at every step to bar her path, till she comes to the isolated rock,
still some way from the water. This she climbs, to reassure herself. The
ship is still in plainest sight. But now, worn out with overtension,
Hunilla all but faints; she fears to step down from her giddy perch; she is
fain to pause, there where she is, and as a last resort catches the turban
from her head, unfurls and waves it over the jungles towards us.

During the telling of her story the mariners formed a voiceless circle
round Hunilla and the captain, and when at length the word was given to man
the fastest boat, and pull round to the isle's thither side, to bring away
Hunilla's chest and the tortoise oil, such alacrity of both cheery and sad
obedience seldom before was seen. Little ado was made. Already the anchor
had been recommitted to the bottom, and the ship swung calmly to it.

testdata/encantadas.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

"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
one spoke. I looked back upon the beach, and then upon Hunilla, but her
face was set in a stern dusky calm. The dogs crouching in her lap vainly
licked her rigid hands. She never looked behind her, but sat motionless
till we turned a promontory of the coast and lost all sights and sounds
astern. She seemed as one who, having experienced the sharpest of mortal
pangs, was henceforth content to have all lesser heartstrings riven, one by
one. To Hunilla, pain seemed so necessary that pain in other beings, though
by love and sympathy made her own, was unrepiningly to be borne. A heart of
yearning in a frame of steel. A heart of earthy yearning, frozen by the
frost which falleth from the sky.

The sequel is soon told. After a long passage, vexed by calms and baffling
winds, we made the little port of Tombez in Peru, there to recruit the