n" from a
smuggler's stock, his whole being swallowed up in the majestic slumber
of the shore. Above the peaceful lulling whispers of the sea, the voice
of a girl came from far away, up from under the ground, it seemed,
chanting the monotonous cadence of a hoisting song: _Oh ... oh ... isa!_
and a number of boys would tug at the mast they were stepping, pulling
all together at the proper beat in the sleepy rhythm. It was dinner
time; and tangle-haired women kept calling in shrill notes from the
galley doors; for the "cats" were off gadding in the barn, looking at
the oxen. In every direction the heavy mallets of calkers could be heard
hammering away in deadening regularity. And all these noises evaporated,
as it were, into the vast, light-filled calm, where sounds and things
took on outlines of fantastic indistinctness.

Tonet studied his brother's face expectantly, waiting for that
phlegmatic fellow, to whom words came so hard, to finish formulating his
proposal.

At last the Rector came to the point. In two words, he was tired of
making money penny by penny and day by day. He wanted to make a killing
as so many others had done. There was a living in the sea for any man.
Some people ate bread black, after sweating for it; others took it white
and without the crust, for a moment's work--but risking something! You
get the idea, eh, Tonet!

But the Rector did not wait for Tenet's reply. He got up and walked to
the bow of the old boat, to see if any one were eavesdropping on the
other side.

Not a soul! The beach was deserted as far as the eye could see, away
along to the bath-houses at the resort, where the Valencians came to
play in summer. Beyond lay the harbor, prickly with masts from the
shipping, and flags everywhere, a maze of cross-trees and yards, red and
black smokestacks and cranes that looked like gibbets. Seaward stretched
the Breakwater, a cyclopean wall of red bowlders heaped up in confusion
to make a lee on that storm-swept shore. As background to the whole
scene, the tall buildings of the Grao, warehouses, office
buildings,--the aristocracy and money of the port; and then a long
straight line of roofs, the _Cabanal_, the _Canamelar_, the _Cap de
Fransa_, a rambling agglomeration of many colored houses, less close
together as they left the water, summer places in front with many
stories and slender cupolas, white cabins behind, where the farm land
began, the thatched coverings of the huts rumpled by th