Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/188

 upon the forward gallery of the promenade deck, and, although Macklyn and Albert Jones and other passengers stood with them and even pressed upon them, he stood nearest her, and his shoulder touched her arm. Before them the bow of the "Duumvir" flung aside a bluer sparkle of water than they had yet known, and there opened a majestic avenue between the giant headlands of two continents. Upon the left, flat-roofed Spanish villages rose from the sea and massive square white towers stood beyond upon hills of unfamiliar shapes and colours. On the right a long parapet of ominous mountains, gray and mysterious within a veil of blue haze, ranged down the Straits as far as the eye could reach. It was to this long and somehow disturbing highland barrier that Mme. Momoro directed Ogle's attention.

"Africa!" she said, in a low voice. "That is Africa! Anything could happen behind those mountains, one feels. The stranger it could be, the more one would expect it. These are the Pillars of Hercules; and just here, on this side, is Spain. It is barren, perhaps; yet it is beautiful and smiling, too. But there, that huge sculptured shadow in the high air—that is Africa!"

She said the word "Africa" in a way, as he