James Hopper

“ When he had assured himself of the fact, the boy looked at the girl. She was in the stern-sheets; her shawl was wrapped about her shoulders and over her head in a hood, and she was motionless as a statue of severity. The boy's throat tightened a bit, but he sat upon the centre thwart, very calmly picked up the oars lying at the bottom, and slid them out between the holes.
In another second there came what he expected. Somewhere in the depths of the fog arose the hysterical shriek of the little launch. "Toot—toot—toot," she cried; "toot—toot—toot, toot—toot—toot!" ”

“ The boy moved toward the girl.
But he took one step only, and stopped paralyzed. For she was coming to him, the girl of his longings, coming to him most extraordinarily. She lay in her chair, wrapped in her rugs, and along the narrow alley against the starboard rail she was gliding to him, chair and all, in a smooth, silent, irresistible sweep. A dryness came into the boy's mouth, and his heart gave a big thump. He was in the presence of some wonderful psychic manifestation of the power of love, and his hair rose upon his head in reverence. ”

“ He smoked; the blue haze of his cigar blended with the blue rays of the moon, and the murmur of their voices harmonized caressingly with the whisper of wavelets along the boat's dark flanks. Then, one white and gold dawn, there was a running clang of anchor, a long roaring blast of the siren; the quarantine launch steamed back toward the Pasig as if in panic, and the little steamer began to glide. ”

“ He sat there long, too, this time. Thumps of bales, crashes of boxes, the grating of lighters against the launch's sides, a babel of voices, came to him, but he had no curiosity. The rhythmic clanking of the anchor-chain, hoisted up link by link through hawser, shook him at last out of his despairing torpor. He clambered aboard and squatted by the rudder-post. The boat was gathering headway. It glided as upon azure ice; palm-lined promontories were floating back slowly one by. one—but what the boy saw was the girl. ”

“ The helmsman behind pulled ragefully at a bell, the deck began to boil with a churning movement beneath, and the boy felt his body incline forward. In the black smother ahead a more solid blackness delineated itself—a peaked island rising sheer. The launch stopped, turned to port, and chugged away in the direction from which it had come.
But not five minutes later again the piloto's arms shot out in arresting movement, again to his "tras todo!" the screw churned backward and the boat stopped, almost upon a headland at the head of which a hissing of breakers could be heard. ”

“ For she had bumped her distrustful nose against a coral reef rising sheer from a five-fathom bottom. A gigantic hand took the boy by the nape of the neck and bent him down till he sprawled flat upon the deck (which served him right) ; bales, trunks, and betel-chewing ladies rolled forward in indiscriminate avalanche; there was one long feminine shriek—and then a great silence.
"Tras," said the pilot, chokingly; "tras."
"Chug-chug-chug; chug-chug-chug," went the launch most willingly. ”

“ From there he had a very good view of the girl, who was talking to the red-headed lieutenant, scandalously close to him, the boy thought, and with smiles and tosses of the head and arching glances and exuberant gestures that from the distance seemed to express an unwarranted understanding between them. As a matter of fact, she was saying: "It's a fine day. I like the Philippines. I love teaching. Isn't the water blue? I wish I could swim. Swimming is a good exercise, isn't it? I can't swim. I knew a boy once who could swim. He is dead now. His sister is a dear girl." ”

“ For when the quarter-master's launch at length lay at anchor on the edge of the reef, seeking to create forgetfulness of her sloth in coming by a wonderful trepidating show of hurry to depart, voiced in a rageful whining of her tin whistle, the girl went aboard in a banca foaming to the heave of twenty paddles ”

“ He had put on a white suit, which, what with the leaky banca and the absurd boarding, was now not white. He should have put on his khaki suit—with the yellow leather puttees. Leather leggings, he reflected, made the man; they gave him a certain dash unnoticeable in baggy white trousers dripping and turned up at the bottom. And khaki, buttoned tight, produced an air of efficiency most pleasing. The red-headed lieutenant wore a tight khaki jacket and yellow leather puttees. ”

“ They were young pedagogues, come with a thousand like them across the seas upon a transport cargoed with romance. They were to teach their Malay brothers to work and be strong, and to govern themselves like Americans, wisely and without graft. ”