The sun is nigh set as she passes the old Spanish fort and opens view of the outside ocean. But the heavenly orb that rose over Mont Diablo like a globe of gold goes down beyond ‘Los Farrallones’ more resembling a ball of fire about to be quenched hissing in the sea.
It is still only half-immersed behind the blue expanse, when, gliding out from the portals of the Golden Gate, the Condor rounds Seal Rock, and stands on her course West-South-West.
The wind shifts, the evening breeze begins to blow steadily from the land. This is favourable; and after tacks have been set, and sails sheeted home, there is but little work to be done.
It is the hour of the second dog-watch, and the sailors are all on deck, grouped about the fore hatch, and gleefully conversing. Here and there an odd individual stands by the side, with eyes turned shoreward, taking a last look at the land. Not as if he regretted leaving it, but is rather glad to get away. More than one of that crew have reason to feel thankful that the Chilian craft is carrying them from a country, where, had they stayed much longer, it would have been to find lodgment in a jail. Out at sea, their faces seem no better favoured than when they first stepped aboard. Scarce recovered from their shore carousing, they show swollen cheeks, and eyes inflamed with alcohol; countenances from which the breeze of the Pacific, however pure, cannot remove that sinister cast.
At sight of them, and the two fair creatures sailing in the same ship, a thought about the incongruity—as also the insecurity of such companionship—cannot help coming uppermost. It is like two beautiful birds of Paradise shut up in the same cage with wolves, tigers, and hyenas.
But the birds of Paradise are not troubling themselves about this, or anything else in the ship. Lingering abaft the binnacle, with their hands resting on the taffrail, they look back at the land, their eyes fixed upon the summit of a hill, ere long to become lost to their view by the setting of the sun. They have been standing so for some time in silence, when Iñez says:
“I can tell what you’re thinking of, tia.”
“Indeed, can you? Well, let me hear it.”
“You’re saying to yourself: ‘What a beautiful hill that is yonder; and how I should like to be once more upon its top—not alone, but with somebody beside me.’ Now, tell the truth, isn’t that it?”
“Those are your own thoughts, sobrina.”