"
"This cloud is the coast and in a moment we shall be entering the
creek," he said, quietly. Mrs. Travers stared at it. Was it land--land!
It seemed to her even less palpable than a cloud, a mere sinister
immobility above the unrest of the sea, nursing in its depth the unrest
of men who, to her mind, were no more real than fantastic shadows.
V
What struck Mrs. Travers most, directly she set eyes on him, was the
other-world aspect of Jorgenson. He had been buried out of sight so long
that his tall, gaunt body, his unhurried, mechanical movements, his
set face and his eyes with an empty gaze suggested an invincible
indifference to all the possible surprises of the earth. That appearance
of a resuscitated man who seemed to be commanded by a conjuring spell
strolled along the decks of what was even to Mrs. Travers' eyes the mere
corpse of a ship and turned on her a pair of deep-sunk, expressionless
eyes with an almost unearthly detachment. Mrs. Travers had never been
looked at before with that strange and pregnant abstraction. Yet she
didn't dislike Jorgenson. In the early morning light, white from head to
foot in a perfectly clean suit of clothes which seemed hardly to contain
any limbs, freshly shaven (Jorgenson's sunken cheeks with their withered
colouring always had a sort of gloss as though he had the habit of
shaving every two hours or so), he looked as immaculate as though he
had been indeed a pure spirit superior to the soiling contacts of the
material earth.
Pages:
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297