She stopped every now and then, rose from her seat and busied herself with something. I wondered what she was doing. I saw her haul something into the boat. As she examined it in her hand, the sun flashed upon it. I could hear her laugh happily as she tossed it into the bottom of the boat.
She was trolling for fish and, evidently, getting a plentiful supply.
She rowed in as if intent upon fishing round the island. But, all at once, she changed her mind, turned the boat, pulled in her fishing line and shot into a sandy beach, springing out and pulling the boat clear of the tide.
She straightened herself as she turned and faced the plateau on the far incline of which I lay hidden. I saw at a glance that, though a mere girl in years,—somewhere between sixteen and eighteen,—yet she was a woman, maturing as a June rose, as a butterfly stretching its pretty wings for the first time in the ecstasy of its new birth. Of medium height; her hair was the darkest shade of brown and hung in two long, thick braids down to her neat waist. She seemed not at all of the countrified type I might have expected to encounter so far in the wilds.
She was dressed in a spotless white blouse, the sleeves of which were rolled back almost to her shoulders; with a dark-coloured, serviceable skirt, the hem of which hung high above a pair of small, bare feet and neat, supple-looking ankles. I could see her shoes and stockings, brown in colour, lying in the bow of the boat. She reached over, picked them up, then sat on a rock by the water's edge and pulled them on her feet.
But, after all, it was not her dress that held my attention; although in the main this was pleasing to the eye, nor yet was it the girl's features, for she was still rather far off for me to observe these distinctly. What riveted me was the light, agile rapidity of her every action; and her evident abandonment of everything else for what, for the moment, absorbed her.
As I watched, I became filled with conflicting thoughts. Should I remain where I was, or should I at once betray my presence?
I decided that the island was large enough for both of us. She was not interested in me, so why should I interrupt her in her lonely enjoyment?
I was perplexed more than a little in trying to place where she rightfully belonged. Naturally, I took her to be the daughter of one of the settlers on the far side of Golden Crescent. But there was a something in her entire appearance that seemed to place her on a different plane from that, a plane all by herself; while, again, there was the Spanish song which I had heard her lilt out on the water.
She brought my conjecturing to rather an abrupt conclusion, for, without any warning, she darted up over the rocks and through the ferns to where I lay, and she had almost trodden upon me before I had time to get out of her way.