It was a love song of old Spain
... And that night, that very night, that very wondrous, silent, throbbing night of the Sabbath and the South, when all the air was as it seemed to me in saturation, in a suspense of ecstasy, to be broken, to be precipitated by a word, a motion, a caress, a note ... that night, I say, as I sat on the forward deck alone, I heard, far off and faint as though indeed it were the lute of Andalusia, the low, slow, deep throb of a guitar!... My whole heart stopped. I was no more than a focused demand of life. Reason was gone from me, not intellect but emotion—that is its basic thing after all, emotion born on earth but reaching to the stars.... I listened, not hearing.... It was the air we had heard long ago, a love song of old Spain, written, perhaps, before DeSoto and his men perished in these very bayous and forests that now shielded us against all tumult, all turmoil, all things unhappy or unpleasant. The full tide of life and love swept through my veins as I listened.
I rose, I hastened. At her door I paused. “Helena!” I called raucously. “Helena.” And she made no reply. “Helena,” I called again. “It was the same old air. This is Spain again! Ah, I thank you for that same old air. Helena, forgive me. May I come in—will you come out?”
I halted. A cold voice came from the companionway door. “You have a poor ear for music, John Doe. It is not the same. Do you think I would take orders from you, or any other man?”
I stood irresolute a moment, and then did what I should not have done. I pulled open her door. “Come out,” I demanded. But then I closed the door and went away. She was sitting, her head bowed on the instrument she had played. And when she looked up, startled at my rudeness, I saw her eyes wet with tears.