In this improvised city, which might, before the night was over, be
broken up and scattered to the four winds beyond the girdling horizon,
the order and symmetry of a modern town laid out by a surveyor could
have been discerned. In the front line, nearest the waves which rippled
in like thin blades of crystal over the spangled sand, were the little
boats, the trollers, _al volanti_, tiny spry craft that looked like
chicks of the heavy boats lying, in the row behind, in pairs of the same
size and color--_barcas del bou_. In the third file, the retired
veterans of the shore, old hulks, their sides wide open, their
worm-eaten ribs showing through the black gaps, reminded one of the
decrepit nags used in the bull ring, and lay meditating, it seemed, on
the ingratitude of men who do so little for deserving old age.

Rust-colored nets, with flannel shirts and trousers of yellow baize,
were strung along most of the masts; and above this array of color, some
gulls, apparently drunk with sunshine, were leisurely planing in wide
circles, occasionally dropping for a moment into the sea, where the
water was shivering and seething in blebs of light under the high noon.

The Rector was talking about the weather, letting his yellowish eyes
wander sleepily and placidly over the sea and down the coast. Along the
green horizon line some pointed sails dotted the sky like wings of doves
that might have been drinking off there. The shore at this point
receded, forming a bight in the land, with masses of green and clusters
of white cottages alternating along the coast. Here were the hills of
the Puig, big swellings in the low-lying strand, which the sea sometimes
swept over in its angry moods. And there was the castle of Sagunto, its
wavy ramparts curling up and down along the summit of the ridge of
caramel brown. Beyond that, and closing the horizon shoreward, was the
saw-toothed Cordillera, with ripples of red granite, its unmoving crests
reaching up to lap the sky like tongues.

Yes, the good weather had come early that year! You could take it from
the Rector! Everybody from the Cabanal knew that, in such matters, he
had inherited from his master, _tio_ Borrasca, an instinct that never
failed. A puff or two next week, a bit of chop, but nothing much! The
stormy season was over ahead of time, thank heaven, and a fellow could
earn an honest day's pay without fear of putting to sea.

The Rector talked drawlingly, biting at a black "cardoo