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The surface of the bay, as we pushed off from the pier, was almost as smooth and glassy as an expanse of oil; and although my negro boatman whistled persuasively for a breeze, after the manner of sailors, and even ejaculated something that sounded suspiciously like "Come up 'leven!" as he bent to his clumsy oars, he could not coax the Cuban Æolus to unloose the faintest zephyr from the cave of the winds in the high blue mountains north of the city.
The breeze, after faintly ruffling the glassy surface of the water with an occasional cat's-paw, came softly stealing out from the E.S.E., and every sail was immediately trimmed with the most scrupulous nicety to woo the gentle zephyr.
Though plumpness in the female figure is considered to be incompatible with perfect grace, I agree with those who regard it as decidedly preferable to an excessive thinness, though the latter be accompanied with the lightness of a zephyr, and the grace of a sylph.
Then, as the music quickened, I saw her supple body begin to sway, like a lily's stem when a zephyr breathes upon it. Her hands dropped to her sides, and daintily lifting her gown above her feet, she began to dance. Gently at first, and with such ease that she barely moved. Then the step receded, advanced, and grew faster. Her tiny feet twinkled, and tapped the earth in perfect time and rhythm.
This capital should be carefully examined, if for no other reason than to attach greater distinctness of idea to the magnificent verbiage of Milton: "Thwart of these, as fierce, Forth rush the Levant and the Ponent winds, Eurus, and Zephyr; with their lateral noise, Sirocco and Libecchio."
It was a dark, starless night, but so warm that the easterly sea-breeze fanned us like a zephyr. It seemed like La Belle France winking amicably to us across the waters. And a little to the left twinkled "The Green Man" no friendly public-house, but a danger-signal from behind the Goodwin Sands, likewise visible but by miracle.
Women like the Model are a natural product of a chilly climate and high culture. It is not "The frolic wind that breathes the spring, Zephyr with Aurora playing," when the two meet "on beds of violets blue, And fresh-blown roses washed in dew," that claim such women as their offspring.
Verily, we shall have quite a new race in the next generation; I expect all the babes will skip into the world with a pas de zephyr, singing in sweet trebles, "Little dancing loves we are! Who the deuce is our papa?" I think you will be surprised to hear that Lord Borodaile is beginning to thaw; I saw him smile the other day! Certainly, we are not so near the North Pole as we were!
Receiving only a defiant stare from the Italian he groaned and spat noisily on the floor by way of a dignified transition back into taciturnity. A few minutes later the door opened again and the second lieutenant was borne in upon his customary official zephyr, this time singing out a different tiding: "All right, men, smoke if you want to! My mistake, men! It's all right, men!
Of the brave men who rode into action that day two-thirds remained upon the battlefield, and the sole end achieved by that mad charge was to add another glorious page to history. And then Zephyr, struck by a musket-ball full in the chest, dropped in a heap, crushing beneath him Prosper's right thigh; and the pain was so acute that the young man fainted.
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