- end_line
- 7359
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:15.027Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 7294
- text
- of our vessel, were it not for a mysterious presentiment, borne to her,
so our mariners averred, by this isle’s enchanted air. Nor did the
widow’s answer undo the thought.
“How did you come to cross the isle this morning, then, Hunilla?” said
our Captain.
“Señor, something came flitting by me. It touched my cheek, my heart,
Señor.”
“What do you say, Hunilla?”
“I have said, Señor, something came through the air.”
It was a narrow chance. For when in crossing the isle Hunilla gained
the high land in the centre, she must then for the first have perceived
our masts, and also marked that their sails were being loosed, perhaps
even heard the echoing chorus of the windlass song. The strange ship
was about to sail, and she behind. With all haste she now descends the
height on the hither side, but soon loses sight of the ship among the
sunken jungles at the mountain’s base. She struggles on through the
withered branches, which seek at every step to bar her path, till she
comes to the isolated rock, still some way from the water. This she
climbs, to reassure herself. The ship is still in plainest sight. But
now, worn out with over tension, Hunilla all but faints; she fears to
step down from her giddy perch; she is fain to pause, there where she
is, and as a last resort catches the turban from her head, unfurls and
waves it over the jungles towards us.
During the telling of her story the mariners formed a voiceless circle
round Hunilla and the Captain; and when at length the word was given to
man the fastest boat, and pull round to the isle’s thither side, to
bring away Hunilla’s chest and the tortoise-oil, such alacrity of both
cheery and sad obedience seldom before was seen. Little ado was made.
Already the anchor had been recommitted to the bottom, and the ship
swung calmly to it.
But Hunilla insisted upon accompanying the boat as indispensable pilot
to her hidden hut. So being refreshed with the best the steward could
supply, she started with us. Nor did ever any wife of the most famous
admiral, in her husband’s barge, receive more silent reverence of
respect than poor Hunilla from this boat’s crew.
Rounding many a vitreous cape and bluff, in two hours’ time we shot
inside the fatal reef; wound into a secret cove, looked up along a
green many-gabled lava wall, and saw the island’s solitary dwelling.
It hung upon an impending cliff, sheltered on two sides by tangled
thickets, and half-screened from view in front by juttings of the rude
stairway, which climbed the precipice from the sea. Built of canes, it
was thatched with long, mildewed grass. It seemed an abandoned
hay-rick, whose haymakers were now no more. The roof inclined but one
way; the eaves coming to within two feet of the ground. And here was a
simple apparatus to collect the dews, or rather doubly-distilled and
finest winnowed rains, which, in mercy or in mockery, the night-skies
sometimes drop upon these blighted Encantadas. All along beneath the
eaves, a spotted sheet, quite weather-stained, was spread, pinned to
short, upright stakes, set in the shallow sand. A small clinker, thrown
into the cloth, weighed its middle down, thereby straining all moisture
into a calabash placed below. This vessel supplied each drop of water
ever drunk upon the isle by the Cholos. Hunilla told us the calabash,
would sometimes, but not often, be half filled overnight. It held six
quarts, perhaps. “But,” said she, “we were used to thirst. At sandy
Payta, where I live, no shower from heaven ever fell; all the water
there is brought on mules from the inland vales.”
- title
- Chunk 7