the shore, passed over the market
place, stopped at the Fort. There, in the open space, a troop was
drilling, white and speckless, alertly wheeling at the word of command.
Her eyes were still fixed on the group as the ship imperceptibly receded
from the shore, throbbing steadily as the boilers got up steam. A
half-naked brown boy was racing along the wharf to gain a start and beat
the vessel before she reached the military crane.

The woman turned away. She was neither tall nor short: she did not
attract attention overmuch but she was one of those who retain such
attention as they draw. She was clad entirely in black; her face seemed
to start forward intensified. Her features were regular; her mouth
small. Her skin, darkened by the shadow of a broad brimmed hat, blushed
still darker at the cheeks. The attraction was all in the eyes, large
and grey, suggestive of energy without emotion. Her chin was square,
perhaps too thick in the jaw.

She turned once more and leant against the bulwark. A yard away another
woman was also standing, her eyes fixed on the shore, on a figure who
waited motionless on the fast receding wharf. As the steamer kept on her
course the woman craned forward, saw once more and then lost sight of
the lonely figure. She was small, fair, a little insignificant, and
dressed all in white drill.

The steamer had by now attained half speed. The shore was streaming by.
The second woman turned her back on the bulwark, looked about aimlessly,
then, perceiving her neighbour, impulsively went up to her and stood
close beside her.

The two women did not speak, but remained watching the shoals fly past.
Far away a train in Kolaba puffed up sharp bursts of smoke into the blue
air. There was nothing to draw the attention of the beholder in that
interminable shore, low-lying and muddy, splashed here and there with
ragged trees. It was a desert almost, save for a village built between
two swamps. Here and then smoke arose, brown and peaty from a bonfire.
In the evening light the sun's declining rays lit up with radiance the
red speck of a heavy shawl on the tiny figure of a brown girl.

Little by little, as the ship entered the fairway, the shore receded
almost into nothingness. The two women still watched, while India merged
into shadow. It was the second hour and, as the ship slowly turned
towards the west, the women watched the great cocoanut trees turn into
black specks upon Marla point. Then, slowly, the s