That wan, monotonous, cold, and clinging mist had shrouded us
for our burial, and our grave yawned beneath us.
The day passed and the night came, and still we fought the sea, and
still the wind drove us whither it would. The night passed and the
second morning came, and found us yet alive. My wife lay now at
my feet, her head pillowed upon the bundle she had brought from
the minister's house. Too weak for speech, waiting in pain and
cold and terror for death to bring her warmth and life, the knightly
spirit yet lived in her eyes, and she smiled when I bent over her
with wine to moisten her lips. At length she began to wander in her
mind, and to speak of summer days and flowers. A hand held my
heart in a slowly tightening grip of iron, and the tears ran down the
minister's cheeks. The man who had darkened her young life,
bringing her to this, looked at her with an ashen face.
As the day wore on, the gray of the sky paled to a dead man's hue
and the wind lessened, but the waves were still mountain high.
One moment we poised, like the gulls that now screamed about us,
upon some giddy summit, the sky alone above and around us; the
next we sank into dark green and glassy caverns. Suddenly the
wind fell away, veered, and rose again like a giant refreshed.
Diccon started, put his hand to his ear, then sprang to his feet.
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