I again looked very carefully about, fearful still lest some deadly trick was intended, but could see no sign of anything elsewhere on the island living or stirring. All was motionless; nothing came along with the wind but the sound of the creaming of waters, the throb and hum of surf at a distance.
“Back in, men,” said I.
We got the boat stern-on to the beach. It was like a lake for the quiet lipping of the water there. The men held their places on the thwarts, ready at the instant of a cry to give way.
“Come, madam,” said I to the lady.
She approached, comprehending my gesture. I took her by the hands and helped her to spring over the stern; then seated her. The two men jumped in, and we shoved off. I looked back and around as we pulled away for the opening betwixt the reefs. Nothing stirred.
The woman had very fine features. Her eyes were large, dark, and full of fire; her complexion a very delicate, pale olive; her mouth small and firm. Indeed, her mouth wanted but a corresponding and helping expression of sweetness and of tenderness in the other lineaments to be a lovely feature. She was clearly a lady. Her hands were small—models of hands to the finger-tips; her hair was extraordinarily thick, plentiful beyond anything I ever saw in a woman, and of a rich dead blackness. She wore a pair of long gold earrings, bulb-shaped, with a ball at each extremity in which sparkled a little star of diamonds. Some rings, too, she had—one on the forefinger of her right hand was a cross, formed of a sort of dark stone set upon gold, probably a signet ring. No other jewelry did she carry. Her clothes were of some rich stuff, but I could not give a name to the material; a magically contrived combination of dyes, swiftly blending and alternating with every move, and cheating the eye kaleidoscopically—the product of some Asiatic loom, an art that may have ceased as an art, and that has been extinguished by the neglect of taste. So much for my observations of this Spanish lady while we were making for the brig.
I found nothing remarkable in the two seamen. One had a pinched look; he was hollow in the eyes, and an expression of fear lay on his face. In appearance they answered to the beachcomber of the present day. They were hairy, dirty, and wild. A small silver crucifix gleamed in the moss upon the chest of the fellow who spoke English.
I had no time to ask questions. The men swung upon their oars with a will, and the brig lay scarcely a mile distant. I inquired of the lady if she spoke English. She bent her fine eyes very wistfully upon me, and shook her head on the Spanish sailor explaining what I had said. I again inquired of the fellow who understood my speech if there were others upon the island, and he answered, with energy and with passion, that there had been but three, as though he understood me to refer to his shipwreck. I asked if they had found water on the island. He answered “Yes,” and pointed to some cliffs past the beach, where stood a small grove of trees and vegetation, resembling guinea grass, along with a thickness of green bushes coming down the slope.
But now we were alongside the brig. I helped the lady up the side; the two Spanish seamen followed. Greaves called down an order for the boat to keep alongside, and for two hands to remain in her. He then approached us, holding his hat while he bowed to the lady, who returned his salutation with a slow, very stately, elegant gesture, irreconcilable with the horrors from which she was newly rescued, and with the distress and apprehension in which she must continue until she reached her home, wherever that might be.
“She is Spanish, sir,” said I, “and understands not a syllable of our tongue.”