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I rubbed my eyes, and looked, and looked again. Yes; there could be no doubt of it; we were passing a palm-covered island. I awoke Ali, who had just before fallen asleep. To land at night was dangerous. However some risk must be run. We therefore continued close to the shore, in the hope of finding some sheltered bay into which we might run the boat.
Her eyes were lost again in the pinkish glow spreading over the grey- brown sand of the desert, over the palm-covered island near. "And now it's others' turn, or ought to be," she murmured. She looked to where, not far away, Hylda stood leaning over the railing of the dahabieh, her eyes fixed in reverie on the farthest horizon line of the unpeopled, untravelled plain of sand.
But about midnight the breeze freshened from the eastward, and by daylight the smooth, shapely cone of the green little island stood up clear and sharply defined from its surrounding narrow belt of palm-covered shore in a sunlit sea of sparkling blue, and Denison told the captain to get the boat ready. "Ten miles or so isn't much we can sail there and back in the boat."
On this side one sees far into Ibo beyond Arochuku, on that the vision is of Itu and the country behind it, while on the west the palm-covered plain rises into the highlands of Ikot Ekpene. It is one of the fairest of landscapes, but is the haunt of leopards and other wild beasts, and after rain the roadway is often covered with the marks of their feet.
At least it came slowly enough for every one to see that it was coming directly toward the brass cannon. The Bradleys certainly saw this, for they ran as fast as they could, and kept on running. The ball caught the cannon under its mouth and tossed it in the air, knocking the flag-pole into a dozen pieces, and passing on through two of the palm-covered huts.
Sometimes it ran between palm-covered banks of yellow sand as low as those of the Mississippi or the Nile; and again, in half an hour, the banks were rock and as heavily wooded as the mountains of Montana, or as white and bold as the cliffs of Dover, or we passed between great hills, covered with what looked like giant oaks, and with their peaks hidden in the clouds.
At least it came slowly enough for everyone to see that it was coming directly toward the brass cannon. The Bradleys certainly saw this, for they ran as fast as they could, and kept on running. The ball caught the cannon under its mouth and tossed it in the air, knocking the flagpole into a dozen pieces, and passing on through two of the palm-covered huts.
That is all that unloading cargo means to me; and I cannot imagine that it means any more to any of the sons or daughters of men who are not intimately concerned in a particular trade. . . . You must imagine, I say, the S.S. Vesta repeating this monotonous performance; Jaffery and Liosha and the little, black-bearded skipper, all clad in decent raiment, going ashore, and being entertained scraggily or copiously by German, French, Portuguese, English, fever-eyed commissioners, who took them on the tour du propriétaire, among the white wooden government buildings, the palm-covered huts of the natives, and shewed them the Mission Chapels and the new Custom Houses and the pigeon-like fowls and the little dirty naked nigger children, and the exiguity of their stock of glass and china, and the yearning of their souls for the fleshpots of the respective Egypts to which they belonged.
As the breeze freshened in the direction of north-east we sought to avoid the group of the Caymans but the current drove us towards those islands. Sailing to south 1/4 south-east, we gradually lost sight of the palm-covered shore, the hills rising above the town of Trinidad and the lofty mountains of the island of Cuba.
As the clamour increased, the Rev. Wilfrid Deighton opened the door of his study and stepped out upon the shady verandah of the mission house, which stood upon a gentle, palm-covered rise about five hundred yards from the thickly clustering houses of the native village. He was a tall, thin man with a scanty brown beard, and his face wore a wearied, anxious expression.
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