In that knowledge,
which was like the crucial test of their desires, they seemed to have
become completely estranged, as if they had discovered in the very shock
of the collision that the loss of the lighter would not mean the same
thing to them both. This common danger brought their differences in aim,
in view, in character, and in position, into absolute prominence in the
private vision of each. There was no bond of conviction, of common
idea; they were merely two adventurers pursuing each his own adventure,
involved in the same imminence of deadly peril. Therefore they had
nothing to say to each other. But this peril, this only incontrovertible
truth in which they shared, seemed to act as an inspiration to their
mental and bodily powers.
There was certainly something almost miraculous in the way the Capataz
made the cove with nothing but the shadowy hint of the island's shape
and the vague gleam of a small sandy strip for a guide. Where the ravine
opens between the cliffs, and a slender, shallow rivulet meanders out
of the bushes to lose itself in the sea, the lighter was run ashore; and
the two men, with a taciturn, undaunted energy, began to discharge her
precious freight, carrying each ox-hide box up the bed of the rivulet
beyond the bushes to a hollow place which the caving in of the soil had
made below the roots of a large tree.
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