Pagina 151 de 416

Then there came the clicking of many windlasses and the strain of

many ropes, and to the women and girls who lined the shore these

noises were as the beatings of the executioner's hand upon the

cell-door of a condemned man.

For the first time they seemed to realize what was about to

happen. The young girls and the brides wept, but those with

children at their skirts looked stonily to the vessel that bore

their loved ones; for they were hardened in the fear of death and

bereavement, and had become fatalists.

The old women shook their heads, and if tears rolled down their

faces they were the tears of dotage, and were shed perhaps for

the swift and fleeting beauty of brides under the strain of their

first long separation.