Rudolph, watching this tropic miracle, could make out
the white figure of the captain, asleep near by, under the faint
semicircle of the deck-house; and across from him, Miss Drake, still
sitting upright, as though waiting, with Flounce at her side. Landward,
against the last sage-green vapor of daylight, ran the dim range of the
hills, in long undulations broken by sharper crests, like the finny back
of leviathan basking.
Over there, thought Rudolph, beyond that black shape as beyond its
guarding dragon, lay the whole mysterious and peaceful empire, with
uncounted lives going on, ending, beginning, as though he, and his sore
loss, and his heart vacant of all but grief, belonged to some
unheard-of, alien process, to Nature's most unworthy trifling. This
boatload of men and women--so huge a part of his own experience--was
like the tiniest barnacle chafed from the side of that dark,
serene monster.
Rudolph stared long at the hills, and as they faded, hung his head.
From that dragon he had learned much; yet now all learning was but loss.
Of a sudden the girl spoke, in a clear yet guarded voice, too low to
reach the sleepers.
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