Page:George Gibbs--Love of Monsieur.djvu/293

 She leaned back upon his arm again, and so, hand in hand, they sat in their little vessel, mute and spellbound at the completeness of their happiness, which even the presence of grim danger was powerless to steal away from them. The air was sweet and balmy and brushed their cheeks like the breath from an angel’s wing. The first pungent aromatic odor of the land reached their nostrils, mingled delicately with the salt of the sea. In silence they watched the planets burn and glow red like molten iron against the star-bepowdered sky, across which the placid moon sailed down upon its promised course. Flying stars vied with each other in the brightness of their illuminations in their honor. And presently, shaming them into darkness, a giant meteor shot like a flaming brand across the spacious sky, spurning and burying in its splendid pathway a myriad of the lesser embers; which, when it was done, peeped forth again timidly upon the velvet night, ashamed of their small share in its glory. All of this they saw reflected doubly on an ocean of gray satin, which sent the bright reflections in wriggling 281