Hour
after hour I sat there that night, smoking a chibouque, reading, and
listening to the batteries and lamentations of that haunted air,
shrinking from it, fearing even for the _Speranza_ by her quay in the
sequestered harbour, and for the palace-pillars. But what astonished me
was that girl: for, after sitting on the ottoman to my left some time,
she fell sideways asleep, not the least fear about her, though I should
have thought that nervousness at such a turmoil would be so natural to
her: and whence she has this light confidence in the world into which
she has so abruptly come I do not know, for it is as though someone
inspired her with the mood of nonchalance, saying: 'Be of good cheer,
and care not a pin about anything: for God is God.'
I heard the ocean swing hoarse like heavy ordnance against the cliffs
below, where they meet the outer surface of the southern of the two
claws of land that form the harbour: and the thought came into my mind:
'If now I taught her to speak, to read, I could sometimes make her read
a book to me.
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