Her wondrous beauty, the
flashing of the jewels that encrusted her belt, and that seemed to gleam
and sparkle all over her picturesque attire, the haunting look of those
great, lustrous eyes, all the reminiscence of that eventful
night,--how fondly we recurred to them again and again in the
forecastle or the night-watch, and with what pleasure we recognized
the first indications that her trance of terror had passed, and that
she had resumed a living interest in the strange world around her.
First the open window of the cabin gave evidence that the balmy air
and the pleasant shores we skirted were no longer indifferent to her;
then came flitting glimpses of bright garments and brighter eyes
quickly withdrawn from observation into the depths of the fairy grotto
she inhabited; and finally, one beautiful moonlight evening, while
most of the crew were on deck watching the lurid peak of Etna and the
pavement of golden waves stretching toward it, and listening not to
premonitions of Scylla or Charybdis, but to the song of the
nightingales from the dim shore, or to tales of Enceladus and the
Cyclops from Fred, and whimsical comments from Mike, she came
hesitatingly forth, arousing an excitement and curiosity among us as
intense as if she were a ghost arising from the tomb.
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