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Chita: a Memory of Last Island by Lafcadio Hearn
page 53 of 102 (51%)
"The captain is quite right," observed Dr. Hecker: "it would be
very dangerous to take the child away just now. "There was no
dissent.

--"All correct, boys?" asked the captain ... "Well, we've got to
be going. By-by, Zouzoune!"

But Zouzoune burst into tears. Laroussel was going too!

--"Give her the thing, Laroussel! she gave you a kiss,
anyhow--more than she'd do for me," cried the captain.

Laroussel turned, detached the little compass from his watch
chain, and gave it to her. She held up her pretty face for his
farewell kiss ...


VI.

But it seemed fated that Feliu's waif should never be
identified;--diligent inquiry and printed announcements alike
proved fruitless. Sea and sand had either hidden or effaced all
the records of the little world they had engulfed: the
annihilation of whole families, the extinction of races, had, in
more than one instance, rendered vain all efforts to recognize
the dead. It required the subtle perception of long intimacy to
name remains tumefied and discolored by corruption and exposure,
mangled and gnawed by fishes, by reptiles, and by birds;--it
demanded the great courage of love to look upon the eyeless faces
found sweltering in the blackness of cypress-shadows, under the
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