The pilot, whom Hurlstone recognized
as the former third mate of the Excelsior, appeared to understand the
passage perfectly; and even Hurlstone and the ladies, who had through
eight months' experience become accustomed to the luminous obscurity
of Todos Santos, could detect the faint looming of the headland at the
entrance. The same soothing silence, even the same lulling of the unseen
surf, which broke in gentle undulations over the bar, and seemed to lift
the barque in rocking buoyancy over the slight obstruction, came back to
them as on the day of their fateful advent. The low orders of the pilot,
the cry of the leadsman in the chains, were but a part of the restful
past.
Under the combined influence of the hour and the climate, the
conversation fell into monosyllables, and Mrs. Markham dozed. The lovers
sat silently together, but the memory of a kiss was between them. It
spanned the gulf of the past with an airy bridge, over which their
secret thoughts and fancies passed and repassed with a delicious
security; henceforth they could not flee from that memory, even if they
wished; they read it in each other's lightest glance; they felt it
in the passing touch of each other's hands; it lingered, with vague
tenderness, on the most trivial interchange of thought.
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