y her side, his
length along the warm wave, his arm along the boat, a boy floats in his
linen clothes, an amphibious child, so undersized as to seem but little
more than a baby, and yet a year her senior. He swims round and round
the skiff in circling frolics, followed by the great dog who gambols
with them, he dives under it and comes up far in advance, he treads
water as he returns, and, seizing the painter, draws it forward while
she sits there like Thetis guiding her sea-horses. Then, as the sun
flings down more fervid showers, together they beach the boat and
scamper up the sand, where old Disney, who has been dredging for oysters
in the great bed below, crowns his basket with little Ray, and bears him
off perched aloft on his bent back. Vivia walks beside the old slave in
her infantile dignity, and disregards the sundry attempts of Ray's
outstretched arms, till of a sudden the beating play of hoofs runs along
the ground, and Beltran, with his morning's game, races by on his fiery
mustang, and, scarcely checking his speed as he passes, stoops from the
saddle and lifts the little girl before him. Vivia would look back in
triumph upon Ray in his ignoble conveyance, but the affair has already
been too much for him, he has flung himself on the instant from old
Disney's basket, as if he were careless whether he fell under the
horse's feet or not, but knowing perfectly well that Beltran will catch
him. And Beltran, suddenly pulling up with a fierce rein, does catch
him, bestows him with Vivia, slightly to her dainty discomfort, and
dashes on. Noon deepens; Vivia does not sleep, she seeks Ray, Ray who
does not sleep either, but who is not to be beguiled. For, one day, the
child in his troubled dreams had been found by Beltran with a white coil
of fangs and venom for his pillow; and never since has Beltran taken his
noontide siesta but Ray watches beside him till the thick brown lashes
lift themselves once more. For, if Ray knows what worship is, he would
show you Beltran enshrined in his heart, this brother a dozen years his
elder, who had hailed his birth with stormy tears of joy, who had
carried him for years when he was yet too weak to walk, who in his own
full growth would seem to have absorbed the younger's share, were it not
that, tiny as Ray may be, his every nerve is steel, made steel, though,
by the other, and so trained and suppled and put at his service. It was
Beltran who had first flung him astride the saddle a