THE ketch drifted into the serene inclosure ofthe bay as silently as the reflections movingover the mirrorlike surface of the water.Beyond a low arm of land that hid the sea thewestern sky was a single, clear yellow; farther onthe left the pale, incalculably old limbs of cypress,their roots bare, were hung with gatheringshadows as delicate as their own faint foliage.The stillness was emphasized by the ceaseless murmurof the waves breaking on the far, seawardbars.
John Woolfolk brought the ketch up where heintended to anchor and called to the stoopingwhite-clad figure in the bow: “Let go!” Therewas an answering splash, a sudden rasp of hawser,the booms swung idle, and the yacht imperceptiblysettled into her berth. The wheel turned impotently;and, absent-minded, John Woolfolk lockedit. He dropped his long form on a carpet-coveredfolding chair near by. He was tired.His sailor, Poul Halvard, moved about with anoiseless and swift efficiency; he rolled and casedthe jib, and then, with a handful of canvas stops,secured and covered the mainsail and proceeded aftto the jigger. Unlike Woolfolk, Halvard wasshort—a square figure with a smooth, deep-tannedcountenance, colorless and steady, pale blueeyes. His mouth closed so tightly that it appearedimmovable, as if it had been carved from some obduratematerial that opened for the necessities ofneither speech nor sustenance.
Tall John Woolfolk was darkly tanned, too, andhad a grey gaze, by turns sharply focused withbright black pupils and blankly introspective. Hewas garbed in white flannels, with bare ankles andsandals, and an old, collarless silk shirt, withsleeves rolled back on virile arms incongruously tattooedwith gauzy green cicadas.
He stayed motionless while Halvard put theyacht in order for the night. The day’s passagethrough twisting inland waterways, the hazard ofthe tides on shifting flats, the continual concentrationon details at once trivial and highly necessary,had been more wearing than the cyclone the ketchhad weathered off Barbuda the year before.They had been landbound since dawn; and all dayJohn Woolfolk’s instinct had revolted against thefields and wooded points, turning toward the opensea.
Halvard disappeared into the cabin; and, soonafter, a faint, hot air, the smell of scorched metal,announced the lighting of the vapor stove, the preparat