III.
In the midst of all these mental confusions they arrived at
the wharf; and selecting the most inviting of the various boats
which lay about them in three or four adjacent ferry-slips, and
one which was bound for a half-hour's sail across the wide
beauty of that glorious bay; they soon found themselves afloat
and in swift gliding motion.
They stood leaning on the rail of the guard, as the sharp
craft darted out from among the lofty pine-forests of ships'-masts,
and the tangled underbrush and cane-brakes of the
dwarfed sticks of sloops and scows. Soon, the spires of stone
on the land, blent with the masts of wood on the water; the
crotch of the twin-rivers pressed the great wedged city almost
out of sight. They swept by two little islets distant from the
shore; they wholly curved away from the domes of free-stone
and marble, and gained the great sublime dome of the bay's
wide-open waters.
Small breeze had been felt in the pent city that day, but the
fair breeze of naked nature now blew in their faces. The
waves began to gather and roll; and just as they gained a
point, where—still beyond—between high promontories of
fortresses, the wide bay visibly sluiced into the Atlantic, Isabel
convulsively grasped the arm of Pierre and convulsively spoke.
“I feel it! I feel it! It is! It is!”
“What feelest thou?—what is it?”
“The motion! the motion!”
“Dost thou not understand, Pierre?” said Lucy, eying with
concern and wonder his pale, staring aspect—“The waves: it is
the motion of the waves that Isabel speaks of. Look, they are
rolling, direct from the sea now.”
Again Pierre lapsed into a still stranger silence and revery.
It was impossible altogether to resist the force of this striking
corroboration of by far the most surprising and improbable
thing in the whole surprising and improbable story of Isabel.
Well did he remember her vague reminiscence of the teetering
sea, that did not slope exactly as the floors of the unknown,
abandoned, old house among the French-like mountains.
While plunged in these mutually neutralizing thoughts of
the strange picture and the last exclamations of Isabel, the boat
arrived at its destination—a little hamlet on the beach, not
very far from the great blue sluice-way into the ocean, which
was now yet more distinctly visible than before.
“Don't let us stop here”—cried Isabel. “Look, let us go
through there! Bell must go through there! See! see! out
there upon the blue! yonder, yonder! far away—out, out!—
far, far away, and away, and away, out there! where the two
blues meet, and are nothing—Bell must go!”
“Why, Isabel,” murmured Lucy, “that would be to go to
far England or France; thou wouldst find but few friends in
far France, Isabel.”
“Friends in far France? And what friends have I here?—
Art thou my friend? In thy secret heart dost thou wish me
well? And for thee, Pierre, what am I but a vile clog to thee;
dragging thee back from all thy felicity? Yes, I will go yonder—yonder;
out there! I will, I will! Unhand me! Let
me plunge!”
For an instant, Lucy looked incoherently from one to the
other. But both she and Pierre now mechanically again
seized Isabel's frantic arms, as they were again thrown over the
outer rail of the boat. They dragged her back; they spoke to
her; they soothed her; but though less vehement, Isabel still
looked deeply distrustfully at Lucy, and deeply reproachfully
at Pierre.
They did not leave the boat as intended; too glad were
they all, when it unloosed from its fastenings, and turned about
upon the backward trip.
Stepping to shore, Pierre once more hurried his companions
through the unavoidable publicity of the thoroughfares; but
less rapidly proceeded, soon as they gained the more secluded
streets.
