rviedro. Not a boat had dared go so far from home that day.
The rest of the fleet could be dimly seen, strung out on the horizon in
a wide arc from in front of Valencia to the offings of Cullera. The sky
was a leaden gray; the sea a deep purple, turning to an ebony black in
the troughs of the waves. The wind came in a succession of long frigid
squalls that whipped the sails about and whistled through the rigging.
The _Mayflower_ and its running mate kept on, however, under full sail,
dragging the _bou_-net that was getting heavier and heavier from minute
to minute.

The Rector was posted astern, at the tiller, heading the _Mayflower_
into the menacing gusts, more from instinct than anything else; for his
eyes were not on the water. They were fixed on Tonet, who had been
trying to avoid their piercing gaze ever since the boat left shore. At
times they would shift to little Pascualet, who was standing rigid at
the foot of the mast, throwing his diminutive chest out in challenge to
that sea, which, on his second voyage, was beginning to show its temper.
The _Mayflower_ was now pitching heavily as the waves came stronger and
stronger; but the sailors sauntered casually back and forth about their
work, as if nothing unusual were going on, though a false step would
have thrown them overboard.

The Rector looked from Tonet to the boy and from the boy to Tonet. An
expression of doubt gradually changing to conviction was written on his
face, as he compared them feature by feature, minutely. No, Rosario had
not deceived him. Where had his eyes been all those years not to have
noticed the astonishing resemblance? And Pascualo's face grew paler and
paler under its deep sunburn; his eyes were blood-shot as they had been
the night before, and he pressed his lips tightly together to hold in
the angry words that were tingling on his tongue and gathering in his
throat. God, how people must have been laughing at him! Look at the boy!
The very same face, the very same ways! Who could mistake them?
Pascualet was little Tonet all over again, the frail nervous child he
had tended like a nurse-maid in the tavern-boat. No, that was Tonet's
boy, no use denying it, the living, visible proof of his dishonor! And
as this conclusion settled deeper in the skipper's mind, he tore at the
flesh through his open shirt front, and frowned with sullen animosity at
the water, the boat, and the sailors, who kept looking at him out of the
corners of their ey