- end_line
- 7094
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T07:57:55.413Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 7042
- text
- things, not omitting two favorite dogs, of which faithful animal all
the Cholos are very fond, Hunilla and her companions were safely landed
at their chosen place; the Frenchman, according to the contract made
ere sailing, engaged to take them off upon returning from a four
months’ cruise in the westward seas; which interval the three
adventurers deemed quite sufficient for their purposes.
On the isle’s lone beach they paid him in silver for their passage out,
the stranger having declined to carry them at all except upon that
condition; though willing to take every means to insure the due
fulfillment of his promise. Felipe had striven hard to have this
payment put off to the period of the ship’s return. But in vain. Still
they thought they had, in another way, ample pledge of the good faith
of the Frenchman. It was arranged that the expenses of the passage home
should not be payable in silver, but in tortoises; one hundred
tortoises ready captured to the returning captain’s hand. These the
Cholos meant to secure after their own work was done, against the
probable time of the Frenchman’s coming back; and no doubt in prospect
already felt, that in those hundred tortoises—now somewhere ranging the
isle’s interior—they possessed one hundred hostages. Enough: the vessel
sailed; the gazing three on shore answered the loud glee of the singing
crew; and ere evening, the French craft was hull down in the distant
sea, its masts three faintest lines which quickly faded from Hunilla’s
eye.
The stranger had given a blithesome promise, and anchored it with
oaths; but oaths and anchors equally will drag; naught else abides on
fickle earth but unkept promises of joy. Contrary winds from out
unstable skies, or contrary moods of his more varying mind, or
shipwreck and sudden death in solitary waves; whatever was the cause,
the blithe stranger never was seen again.
Yet, however dire a calamity was here in store, misgivings of it ere
due time never disturbed the Cholos’ busy mind, now all intent upon the
toilsome matter which had brought them hither. Nay, by swift doom
coming like the thief at night, ere seven weeks went by, two of the
little party were removed from all anxieties of land or sea. No more
they sought to gaze with feverish fear, or still more feverish hope,
beyond the present’s horizon line; but into the furthest future their
own silent spirits sailed. By persevering labor beneath that burning
sun, Felipe and Truxill had brought down to their hut many scores of
tortoises, and tried out the oil, when, elated with their good success,
and to reward themselves for such hard work, they, too hastily, made a
catamaran, or Indian raft, much used on the Spanish main, and merrily
started on a fishing trip, just without a long reef with many jagged
gaps, running parallel with the shore, about half a mile from it. By
some bad tide or hap, or natural negligence of joyfulness (for though
they could not be heard, yet by their gestures they seemed singing at
the time) forced in deep water against that iron bar, the ill-made
catamaran was overset, and came all to pieces; when dashed by
broad-chested swells between their broken logs and the sharp teeth of
the reef, both adventurers perished before Hunilla’s eyes.
- title
- Chunk 2