ections. The grave, the wreck of the brig, and the rusty shoe-buckle
were surely plain advertisements. A child might have read their dismal
story, and yet it was not until I touched that actual piece of mankind
that the full horror of the charnel ocean burst upon my spirit. I laid
the bone beside the buckle, picked up my clothes, and ran as I was along
the rocks towards the human shore. I could not be far enough from the
spot; no fortune was vast enough to tempt me back again. The bones of
the drowned dead should henceforth roll undisturbed by me, whether on
tangle or minted gold. But as soon as I trod the good earth again, and
had covered my nakedness against the sun, I knelt down over against the
ruins of the brig, and out of the fulness of my heart prayed long and
passionately for all poor souls upon the sea. A generous prayer is never
presented in vain; the petition may be refused, but the petitioner is
always, I believe, rewarded by some gracious visitation. The horror, at
least, was lifted from my mind; I could look with calm of spirit on that
great bright creature, God's ocean; and as I set off homeward up the
rough sides of Aros, nothing remained of my concern beyond a deep
determination to meddle no more with the spoils of wrecked vessels or
the treasures of the dead.

I was already some way up the hill before I paused to breathe and look
behind me. The sight that met my eyes was doubly strange.

For, first, the storm that I had foreseen was now advancing with almost
tropical rapidity. The whole surface of the sea had been dulled from its
conspicuous brightness to an ugly hue of corrugated lead; already in
the distance the white waves, the "skipper's daughters," had begun to
flee before a breeze that was still insensible on Aros; and already
along the curve of Sandag Bay there was a splashing run of sea that I
could hear from where I stood. The change upon the sky was even more
remarkable. There had begun to arise out of the south-west a huge and
solid continent of scowling cloud; here and there, through rents in its
contexture, the sun still poured a sheaf of spreading rays; and here and
there, from all its edges, vast inky streamers lay forth along the yet
unclouded sky. The menace was express and imminent. Even as I gazed, the
sun was blotted out. At any moment the tempest might fall upon Aros in
its might.

The suddenness of this change of weather so fixed my eyes on heaven that
it was some seconds before