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Chapter 8. BETTER ACQUAINTANCE
The boat was gone again, and already half-way to the Farallone, before
Herrick turned and went unwillingly up the pier. From the crown of
the beach, the figure-head confronted him with what seemed irony,
her helmeted head tossed back, her formidable arm apparently hurling
something, whether shell or missile, in the direction of the anchored
schooner. She seemed a defiant deity from the island, coming forth to
its threshold with a rush as of one about to fly, and perpetuated in
that dashing attitude. Herrick looked up at her, where she towered above
him head and shoulders, with singular feelings of curiosity and romance,
and suffered his mind to travel to and fro in her life-history. So long
she had been the blind conductress of a ship among the waves; so long
she had stood here idle in the violent sun, that yet did not avail
to blister her; and was even this the end of so many adventures? he
wondered, or was more behind? And he could have found in his heart to
regret that she was not a goddess, nor yet he a pagan, that he might
have bowed down before her in that hour of difficulty.
When he now went forward, it was cool with the shadow of many well-grown
palms; draughts of the dying breeze swung them together overhead; and on
all sides, with a swiftness beyond dragon-flies or swallows, the spots
of sunshine flitted, and hovered, and returned. Underfoot, the sand was
fairly solid and quite level, and Herrick's steps fell there noiseless
as in new-fallen snow. It bore the marks of having been once weeded like
a garden alley at home; but the pestilence had done its work, and the
weeds were returning. The buildings of the settlement showed here and
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