Then, once again, looking to the north, she continued: “But I hope I may not have to undertake that fearful journey—I can see nothing,” she said with a sigh, “if Charles were really on my track, he must have appeared long before this on the table-land!”
Therewith she turned her face full to the ocean. Though she was disguised in Javanese dress, yet she was, and always would remain, a child of the West; that is to say, her eyes were open to the glories which Nature was there offering to her gaze.
Before her lay the Indian Ocean. On the far horizon it seemed to melt away into the sky; but yet in that distance a line clearly defined the apparent contact of sea and heaven. Closer inland the water wore a dark blue tint, forming a beautiful contrast with the light azure-blue of the heavens. This contrast was rendered more striking still by the tremendous rollers which came up from the South. Those mighty billows looked like long lines of liquid hills, which seemed to detach themselves from the horizon and come rolling in majestically upon the shore of Java.
These immense waves were smooth as polished glass; for not the faintest breath of wind so much as ruffled their surface, and thus rising and falling calmly and mysteriously, they looked like the undulations of some vast sheet of dark blue cloth. They came rolling in quietly and regularly like the ranks of an advancing army; and, on the side of the wide ocean, they sloped but very gently, as though the deep were too languid to exert itself. But, on the land-side, the slope was steep and the columns of water came on black as an advancing wall. At first, and seen at a distance, the tops of these advancing waves were smooth and round; but as the watery mass neared the land and the wave rose higher and higher, so gradually did it narrow and grow sharper at the top; and the billows seemed to succeed one another at shorter intervals. At length, the tops lost their rounded form altogether—they became a mere ridge which began to fret angrily—then they sharpened to a mere line which, fast and furious, seemed eager to outstrip the wave itself. A moment after, this line of water began to bend forward, forward, forward still, until it formed an arc of immeasurable length. Presently that graceful curve seemed to fly to pieces and shake itself into a ragged crest of silver foam; and, at last, the entire mass came toppling down, covering the sea with thick milk-white froth which came sparkling, and thundering, and dashing itself into blinding spray against the wall of trachyte which seemed to say to the mighty element: “Hitherto shalt thou come and no farther.”
Anna did not venture to look down into the sheer depth below her, where the waters were boiling in their fury. She feared that a look into that giddy depth might shake her resolution should she actually be compelled to attempt the descent. She gazed out far away to the horizon. There, almost due west, she could clearly see Noesa Kembangan, that beautiful hilly island which, with its luxurious vegetation, seemed to float as a basket of flowers on the watery expanse. She could clearly discern its lighthouse standing on the Tjemering hill—standing out clear against the light blue sky like a pillar of cloud arising from among the foliage. Here and there the bosom of the ocean was dotted with a white sail like some big sea-bird disporting itself upon the glassy surface. And, as if chance had wished to accentuate that resemblance, just then a flight of snow-white cranes came hovering by, forming a dull white stripe on the azure sky. They flew harshly screeching towards the West, on their way, probably, to the fishy lagoons and morasses which there abound. The swift and easy flight of these birds suggested a sad thought to poor Anna: “Oh, that I had wings,” she sighed, “that I also could fly, fly far away and be at rest!”
And then her fancy carried her back to the past. The image of Charles van Nerekool rose up vividly before her. As in a dream she pictured to herself how happy she might have been by her lover’s side. She could hear that “invitation à la valse” and to its delightful melody she seemed once again to float about with his arm around her. She could hear his first murmured confession of love. She again passed through those delicious moments after the dance in the quiet garden of the Residence. Before her, arose the Pandan grove in which Charles had gently detained her to reiterate his declaration of love. At the rhythmical swell and thunder of the ocean, which was giving forth its mighty melody at her feet, she fancied she could hear again the soft duet played by the cornet and the piccolo:
“Un jour l’âme ravie,
Je vous vis si jolie,
Que je vous crus sortie
Du céleste séjour.