.The horizon was cloudless that evening, and over the ocean, beyond the ridge of Toros Point, a glimmer of daylight lingered in the sky. The gorges of the San Benito Hills were filled with a purplish haze; little by little, with a change relentless and imperceptible as the approach of age, purple shadows turned gray and gray turned black, while the afterglow illuminating the summits of the range faded and was swallowed up in the dusk.
The valley leading inland from the bay was odorous with the moist, subtle perfume of bottom land; the air trembled faintly as the thunder of the breakers drifted in from the beach beyond the marshes of La Balsa. ..