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Updated: June 25, 2025
At dawn the wind freshened, and the Garbosa, like an old war-horse touched with the spur, leapt forward, careering and dancing over the ruffled waters.
Algiers could not be far away! That was the French Mediterranean squadron, out for practice. God, what big boats people were making nowadays! The smallest of those monsters, the white cruiser, with all those flags and black balls, that kept going in and out among the other ships, signaling and directing the evolutions, would only have to graze the Garbosa to reduce her to kindling wood!
Behind, the peak of the Mongó alone was visible, for the base of the mountain was cloaked in cloud. The Garbosa was running with an alarming list to starboard, its bulging sail almost dipping into the water, as the vessel raced along. The frown of the weather was not at all to the liking of the captain, who, if he wanted to get his load ashore, would not be able to run in till nightfall anyhow.
To sea, then, even if the whole thing went to the bottom for the sharks to smoke! No coast guard was ever going to brag about getting rich on him! After the meal at noon time, the Garbosa spread her sail, and left the sheltered anchorage as mysteriously as she had come. She said not even good-by to the lighthouse people who came out on the platform in front of the beacon to see her off.
Diós, what a wind! First a slap here and then a slap there! The Garbosa almost stood on her stern end as she was lifted by the first wave, outside; but she staggered free and shoved her nose into the green of the trough that followed, as though she were headed for the depths through one of those gigantic eddies that blinked like treacherous eyes of the abyss. Then, crash!
Suddenly the Rector jumped to his feet and let the tiller go. Futro! There was no doubt about it. A sail had heaved in view out of the mists around the Cape. He knew that craft well. It was the cutter from Valencia on watch off the point. Some one had squealed at the Cabañal! The real object of the Garbosa had been not fishing, but something else!
The waters shone with a dazzling glare as though boiling from an infinite conflagration. The decks of the Garbosa grew hot, and her old timbers cracked stridently as they shrank.
The Rector headed inshore, but then his astonishing good humor gave way to a thoughtful mood. He knew what that coast was like. If he tried to lie to in that blow, it would be all over in two hours. They would smash up, either on the Breakwater or on the bars in front of Nazaret. To run offshore was out of the question. The Garbosa was getting loggier and loggier every moment.
The Garbosa, old horse, was smelling her oats, and bolting along the last lap to the stable, though every bone in her strained! They were heading East-Southeast now; and by evening-fall, on the flanks of the Mala Dona, indistinct still in the haze to starboard, could nevertheless be seen the rolling tops of hills, and white blotches that meant villages.
But one by one the heavy bundles began to come aboard, sewed up in waterproof burlap and exhaling a teasing fragrance. The two craft were lashed together so that the transfer was not difficult. As the packages vanished through the hatches of the Garbosa, the old boat got lower and lower in the water, groaning and creaking, meanwhile, like a long-suffering donkey complaining of its load.
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