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Her hair was jet-black, brushed straight back from her temples, her complexion a rich olive, her teeth pure white. Her lashes were long, and opened and shut with a slow, fan-like movement, shading a pair of deep blue eyes, which shone with that peculiar light only seen when quick tears lie hidden under half-closed lids. Her figure was rounded and full, and her hands exquisitely modeled.
We enter a new world the under-world of water, and things that glide and swim; of sea-grasses and currents; of flowing waves that lap about the body with a cool chill; of palpitating color, that, at great depths, becomes a sort of darkness; of sea-beds of shell and sand, and bits of scattered wreckage; of ooze and tangled sea-plants, dusky shapes, and fan-like fins.
A few old china cups; some modern vases, adorned with paltry paintings of three Spanish cavaliers playing three Spanish guitars; or a party of boors carousing: each boor with one leg painfully elevated in the air, by way of expressing his perfect freedom and gaiety; several sets of chessmen, two or three flutes, a few fiddles, a round-eyed portrait staring in astonishment from a very dark ground; some gaudily-bound prayer-books and testaments, two rows of silver watches quite as clumsy and almost as large as Ferguson’s first; numerous old-fashioned table and tea spoons, displayed, fan-like, in half-dozens; strings of coral with great broad gilt snaps; cards of rings and brooches, fastened and labelled separately, like the insects in the British Museum; cheap silver penholders and snuff-boxes, with a masonic star, complete the jewellery department; while five or six beds in smeary clouded ticks, strings of blankets and sheets, silk and cotton handkerchiefs, and wearing apparel of every description, form the more useful, though even less ornamental, part, of the articles exposed for sale.
The forest on the other side was more open; no doubt, because some former fire had burned down the underwood in that direction. The fan-like leaves of palmettos and yuccas growing all around, gave a southern and tropical aspect to the scene. The young hunters had halted nearly two hours before sunset, in order to give time to prepare their night-camp.
It was a north window, and only one leaf of the upper half of the shutter was open. The aperture disclosed, instead of burning sky, a thick screen of horse-chestnut boughs. The great fan-like leaves almost touched the window-glass, and tinted all the dim parallelogram of light.
When within two or three hundred yards of the ground, her wings flew out, her tail was spread, and, suddenly lowered, fan-like to its fullest extent, arrested her downward course; and, with a few measured strokes, she glided slowly over the tops of the trees, and alighted on the summit of the dead magnolia. Basil seized his rifle, with the intention of having a shot.
Then we rode off together, four or five miles north, where Dinky-Dunk was sure we could get a bag of duck. Which we did, thirteen altogether, and started for home as the sun got low and the evening air grew chilly. It was a heavenly ride. In the west a little army of thin blue clouds was edged with blazing gold, and up between them spread great fan-like shafts of amber light.
On the left, moreover, was a metal urn, serving as a receptacle for gratuities; whilst a similar one on the right bristled with a fan-like arrangement of coffee spoons. Monsieur Lebigre was generally to be found enthroned behind his counter upon a seat covered with buttoned crimson leather.
We could still see the blazing hull, as we rose every now and then on the crest of the rollers; while, when we could not perceive it from the subsidence of the waves under the boat's keel, making us sink down, a pillar of smoke, floating in the air high above the Esmeralda in a long fan-like trail, and stretching out to where sky and sea met in the extreme distance, told us where she was without any fear of mistake.
It was after supper, in the hot dusk in Nannie's parlor; Elizabeth was there, and the two girls, in white dresses, were fanning themselves languidly; Blair, at the piano, was playing the Largo, with much feeling. The windows were open. It was too warm for lamps, and the room was lighted only by the occasional roar of flames, breaking fan-like from the tops of the stacks in the Yards.
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