Ricardo and ñaltaMartayMaríMarta continued slowly drawing nearer the water, still under the spell of reverence and admiration. As they advanced, the sand grew smoother and smoother; the prints of their feet immediately filled with water. Coming still nearer, they noticed that the waves increased, and that their curling volutes at the moment of breaking would cover them up if they could get them in their power. They came in toward them solid, stately, imposing, as though they were certain to carry them off and bury them forever amid their folds; but five or six yards away they fell to the ground, expressing their disappointment with a tremendous, prolonged roar; the torrents of foam which issued from their destruction came spreading up and leaping on the sand to kiss their feet.
After considerable time of silent contemplation, Marta began to feel disturbed; she imagined that she noticed in them a constantly increasing desire to get hold of her, and that they expressed their longing with angry, desperate cries. She stepped back a little and seized Ricardo's hand, without confessing to him the foolish fear that had taken possession of her; she imagined that the sheet of foam sent up by the waves, instead of kissing her feet, was trying to bite them; that as it gathered itself up again with gigantic eagerness, it attracted her against her will, to carry her away no one knows whither.
"Doesn't it seem to you that we are going too close to the waves, Ricardo?"
"Do you think perhaps they'll come up as far as where you are?"
"I don't know ... but it seems to me as though we were sliding down insensibly ... and that they would get hold of us at last."
"Don't you be alarmed, preciosa," said he, throwing his arm around her shoulder and gently drawing her to him; "neither are the waves coming up to us, nor are we going down to them.... Are you afraid to die?"
"Oh, no, not now!" exclaimed the girl, in a voice scarcely audible, and pressing closer to her friend.
Ricardo did not hear this exclamation; he was attentively watching the passage of a steamboat which was passing down the horizon, belching forth its black column of smoke.
After a time he felt like renewing the theme.
"Are you really afraid of death? Oh, you are well off.... To-day the world has in store for you its most seductive smiles ... not a single cloud obscures the heaven of your life. God grant you may never come to desire it!"