But when they rounded “that headland, there,” they did not sight it … or anything else. Whatever lay beyond was shrouded from them, from sea to sky, as if by a series of pleated white gauze screens and curtains, seemingly one behind another, such as often veiled the throne and person of some exotic Berbar queen in her native court. Vergil looked quizzically at Plauto. And that one rubbed the bridge of his sun-scorched nose, and then slowly shook his puzzled head. Said, “I don’t know what to make of this. Never seen anything exactly like it. Smoke? It don’t look like smoke. And neither can we smell it. Mist? It don’t look like mist, either. It’s not the weather for fog. Nor it’s not the time of year for haze … besides which, it’s not the color as haze would be. But one thing about it as I can tell you —”
And Vergil waited, and then gave some slight questioning sound.
“— I can tell you, my ser, that we are not going to try to hug a shore which we can’t see. Rocks, reefs, shoals, shallows … who can know what might lie there? Eh? Doctor? What do you say?”
Vergil said that he thought he’d like to make a fire. “Right here where I now stand.” Plauto called something. As a crewman appeared with the thin skin of hammered-flat iron and the box of sand on which the few cook-fires were built (lest the direct heats of the fire should infect the wooden surface of the ship), Vergil busied himself with items from his old doe-skin budget. He accepted the few pieces of charcoal which the crewmen next offered him, and to this he added some black shards of his own; bringing samples which he had taken with him when in Naples: not that he had much needed them just then or expected to need them on this or any voyage, but merely that in his haste he had not taken them out of the pack again. Miraculously and somehow, a living coal had been saved afire throughout all the commotions of the storm; Vergil declined it with great politeness. Neither did he accept the offer of Plauto’s tinder-box, its scorched linen, and its flint and steel. Carefully he arranged the charcoal, as though might some grave bird engaged in nidification as the time of the laying of the eggs drew nigh. He bowed his head. The men, assuming he was engaged in prayer, grew silent. In his innermost mind he bethought himself once again in the Sunken School abaft the Fuel Market in Sidon.
And gradually a piece of charcoal reddened.
He had no hollow tube, but, placing his head quite near, himself his own “blower of fire,” he let his warm breath play about the heap. And then all the charcoal was alight.
Next he added a few leaves of sage, and some shaved root of zinziber, the “ginger” of his uneasy recent dream, and one drop only of Olor of Benjamin (benjoin, some called it). Atop this all he placed a sole feather of the swallow, which, released from the wicker cage never so far at sea, would always — wise bird! inerrably head for land, so that a keen-eyed master of a ship might follow o’er the white-waved seas, as the sweet singer of Anglia had put it. And then he fanned with the fan which Plauto had waiting; woven, it was of palm leaves: be there even so much as a single tree upon this hidden shore, likely it would be a palm. And like called, even silently, to like.
The winds blew slowly as before, there was no gust, the sails did not crack, did not luff, neither did there appear (as it might be) an eagle of the mountains with a white goose in its talons as it (the eagle) cried aloud its defiance to the world and air: but steadily as they concentrated all their gaze, those upon the ship saw gradually the gauzy curtains as though one by one drawn back. And the exotic queen — did she stand there before them? Was this indeed “the Veil of Isis”?
What stood there before them was a stretch of coast, like any stretch of coast. Nothing was different. In which case … why had all been so oddly veiled? … why veiled at all?
But suppose something was a little different. A sea bird, wide of wing, wheeled near the ship, then — with a cry — for whom, in that empty sky, to hear? — wheeled away. “Master Plauto,” said Vergil, “hold up your hand, so,” he demonstrated; “and look through the spaces between your fingers. And there, at about the fifth finger, do you think … what? … there is a creek mouthing into the sea?”
“I … do … think … so …” the master of the craft breathed, half intent only upon the accidents of the scene, and half in wonder of its incidents. Then he dropped all this as he might drop a garment, and uttered orders, curt and crisp. The helm turned. The oars were set into the tholes. The sail dropped down. The ship moved now upon its own motion. And Vergil, with a gesture, handed over the fire — just … now … a common fire … to the crewman in charge of such. And closed his old, soft, doe-skin budget. And strode up to the bow and looked.
There she disembogues…. Since, perhaps, the day the waters of Deucalion’s Flood drained off the face of earth, this quiet little river had loosed its waters into the slaunting bay, itself of no great eye-catching quality, and so shy, that river’s nymph, that scarce she revealed herself at alclass="underline" why, therefor, that shielding white veil? One would see. Perhaps. Limpid, and, seemingly, pure, the creek did not even hint of any nearby settlement of the sons and daughters of Deucalion: and perhaps there was none. Even the sounds of the oars striking the waters were small, birds sang and, some of them, white and crimson, rose-red-and-green, were revealed in flight. More and more and thicker and thicker the trees grew, till some of the branches on one side (Plauto, be sure, his keen eyes had not failed to note the currents stealing down to the left, and so he had gestured that the ship keep the right) lightly struck the spars. The river slowly swerved, slowly the ship swerved with it, till, stealing round one more curve, entered upon yet another bay, large enough (thought Vergil) for all the ships of Tartis, plus all those of Rome as well, to ride at anchor; or to execute — all! all! — maneouvres there. A sound of mixed astonishment and delight rose from their throats, to see this hidden treasure; for, evidently, though Plauto … and perhaps all of them … had heard … of the region called Huldah, evidently they had not heard — or none of them had much believed — of this great hidden bay therein. And at the opposite end lay the cultivated lands, the fields of grazing cattle, the orchards neatly set out, the planted gardens, and the settlement of houses.
Houses … there was not much remarkable about most of them … even at this distance he perceived that the relation of thatched roofs to tiled had increased … it had been doing so as they began to pass out of the region of the flat-roofed buildings: clearly there was more than enough vegetation here to supply thatch, which meant that there was either more rain, or more irrigation. Even the existence of so large a river (though very large, compared to the Po, or even the Tiber, it was not) came as a surprise. And there, atop of a small hill — perhaps only distance made it small — was an entirely different structure. Details still were sparse. But instinctively he knew that this was a house. The house. The great house of Huldah. However unusual, however ignorant he was of who might live in it.
The house …
And behind, how far behind he had yet to learn, was, almost a low mountain, an escarpment, like some crouching half-familiar beast. A weasel. A genet. Or … a cat. And did not the word mean … was not any of the words … in what language? he knew, he knew —
Huldah.
“Shall we set ashore on the side?” asked Plauto, quietly. “Or … there seems to be … there is a mole — Eh?”
“There,” equally quietly: Vergil. “I shall walk up.” Implicit: to The House. “I apprehend no danger. I shall go alone.”