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Page 47
I looked at the house of sand and smiled. But she shook her head once
more.
"It never _could_ be finished," she said firmly, "though I tried and
tried, unless the sea would keep quite still just once all day,
without going to and fro. And then," she added with a flash of
anger--"then I would not build."
"Well," said I, "when it is nearly finished, and the water washes up,
and up, and washes it away, here is a flower that came from
Fairyland. And that, dear heart, is none so far away."
She took the purple flower I had plucked in Ennui's garden in her
slim, cold hand.
"It's amaranth," she said; and I have never seen so old a little look
in a child's eyes.
"And all the flowers' names too?" I said.
She frowned again. "It's amaranth," she said, and ran off lightly and
so deftly among the rocks and in the shadow that was advancing now
even upon the foam of the sea, that she had vanished before I had time
to deter, or to pursue her. I sought her awhile, until the dark rack
of sunset obscured the light, and the sea's voice changed; then I
desisted.
It was useless to remain longer beneath the looming caves, among the
stones of so inhospitable a shore. I was a stranger to the tides. And
it was clear high-water would submerge the narrow sands whereon I
stood.
Yet I cannot describe how loth I was to leave to night's desolation
the shapeless house of a child. What fate was this that had set her
to such profitless labour on the uttermost shores of "Tragedy"? What
history lay behind, past, or, as it were, never to come? What gladness
too high for earth had nearly once been hers? Her sea-mound took
strange shapes in the gloom--light foliage of stone, dark heaviness of
granite, wherein rumour played of all that restless rustling; small
cries, vast murmurings from those green meadows, old as night.
I turned, even ran away, at last. I found my boat in the gloaming
where I had left her, safe and sound, except that all the doctor's
good things had been nosed and tumbled by some hungry beast in my
absence. I stood and thought vacantly of Crusoe, and pig, and guns.
But what use to delay? I got in.
If it were true, as the excellent doctor had informed me, that seamen
reported islands not far distant from these shores, chance might bear
me blissfully to one of these. And if not true ... I turned a rather
startled face to the water, and made haste not to think. Fortune
pierces deep, and baits her hooks with sceptics. Away I went, bobbing
mightily over the waves that leapt and wrestled where sea and river
met. These safely navigated, I rowed the great creature straight
forward across the sea, my face towards dwindling land, my prow to
Scorpio.
XVI
_Art thou pale for weariness._
--PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
The constellations of summer wheeled above me; and thus between water
and starry sky I tossed solitary in my boat. The faint lustre of the
sultry night hung like a mist from heaven to earth. Far away above the
countries I had left perhaps for ever, the quiet lightnings played
innocently in the heights.
I rowed steadily on, guiding myself by some much ruddier star on the
horizon. The pale phosphorescence on the wave, the simple sounds as of
fish stirring in the water--the beauty and wonder of Night's
dwelling-place seemed beyond content of mortality.
I leaned on my oars in the midst of the deep sea, and seemed to hear,
as it were, the mighty shout of Space. Faint and enormous beams of
light trembled through the sky. And once I surprised a shadow as of
wings sweeping darkly across, star on to glittering star, shaking the
air, stilling the sea with the cold dews of night.
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