Marta, with her head resting on the young man's knee and her face turned to the sky, allowed her great, liquid eyes to roam around the azure vault, with ears attent to the deep murmurs sounding beneath her. The fresh sea breeze had not yet succeeded in cooling her burning cheeks.
"Hark!" she said, after a little; "don't you hear it?"
"What?"
"Don't you hear, amid the roar of the water, something like a lament?"
Ricardo listened a moment.
"I don't hear anything."
"No; now it has stopped; wait a while.... Now don't you hear it?... Yes, yes, there's no doubt about it ... there's some one weeping in the hollows of this rock...."
"Don't be worried, tonta; it's the surf that makes those strange noises.... Do you want me to go down and see if there's any one in there?"
"No! no!" she exclaimed, eagerly; "stay quiet.... If you should move, it would disturb me greatly...."
The great spot of silver kept extending further over the circuit of the ocean, but it began to grow pale. The sun was rapidly journeying toward the horizon, in majestic calm, without a cloud to accompany him, wrapt in a gold and red vapor, which gradually melted, till it was entirely lost in the clear blue of the sky. The point where they were, likewise stretched its shadow over the water, the dark green of which, little by little, grew into black. The roaring of the waves became muffled, and the breeze blew softly, like the indolent breathing of one about to go to sleep. An august, soul-stirring silence began to come up from the bosom of the waters. In the caverns of the rock Marta no longer perceived the mournful cry which had frightened her; and the thunders and mumblings had been slowly changing into a soft and languid glu glu.