- end_line
- 3518
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T07:57:55.409Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 3477
- text
- state-cabin and this state-balcony had heard the voices of the Spanish
king’s officers, and the forms of the Lima viceroy’s daughters had
perhaps leaned where he stood—as these and other images flitted through
his mind, as the cats-paw through the calm, gradually he felt rising a
dreamy inquietude, like that of one who alone on the prairie feels
unrest from the repose of the noon.
He leaned against the carved balustrade, again looking off toward his
boat; but found his eye falling upon the ribbon grass, trailing along
the ship’s water-line, straight as a border of green box; and parterres
of sea-weed, broad ovals and crescents, floating nigh and far, with
what seemed long formal alleys between, crossing the terraces of
swells, and sweeping round as if leading to the grottoes below. And
overhanging all was the balustrade by his arm, which, partly stained
with pitch and partly embossed with moss, seemed the charred ruin of
some summer-house in a grand garden long running to waste.
Trying to break one charm, he was but becharmed anew. Though upon the
wide sea, he seemed in some far inland country; prisoner in some
deserted château, left to stare at empty grounds, and peer out at vague
roads, where never wagon or wayfarer passed.
But these enchantments were a little disenchanted as his eye fell on
the corroded main-chains. Of an ancient style, massy and rusty in link,
shackle and bolt, they seemed even more fit for the ship’s present
business than the one for which she had been built.
Presently he thought something moved nigh the chains. He rubbed his
eyes, and looked hard. Groves of rigging were about the chains; and
there, peering from behind a great stay, like an Indian from behind a
hemlock, a Spanish sailor, a marlingspike in his hand, was seen, who
made what seemed an imperfect gesture towards the balcony, but
immediately as if alarmed by some advancing step along the deck within,
vanished into the recesses of the hempen forest, like a poacher.
What meant this? Something the man had sought to communicate, unbeknown
to any one, even to his captain. Did the secret involve aught
unfavorable to his captain? Were those previous misgivings of Captain
Delano’s about to be verified? Or, in his haunted mood at the moment,
had some random, unintentional motion of the man, while busy with the
stay, as if repairing it, been mistaken for a significant beckoning?
- title
- Chunk 8