wind in sheets,--and sheltered as I was,
the torrents seemed to pour over me like cataracts, and every drop
pierced me like a needle, and I put my fingers in my ears to shut out
the howl of the wind and the waves. I couldn't keep my thoughts away
from Faith. Oh, poor girl, this wasn't what she'd expected! As plainly
as if I were aboard-ship I felt the scene, the hurrying feet, the
slippery deck, the hoarse cries, the creaking cordage, the heaving and
plunging and straining, and the wide wild night. And I was beating
off those dreadful lines with them, two dreadful lines of white froth
through the blackness, two lines where the horns of breakers guard the
harbor,--all night long beating off the lee with them, my life in my
teeth, and chill, blank, shivering horror before me. My whole soul, my
whole being, was fixed in that one spot, that little vessel driving on
the rocks: it seemed as if a madness took possession of me, I reeled
as I walked, I forefelt the shivering shock, I waited till she should
strike. And then I thought I heard cries, and I ran out in the storm,
and down upon the causeway, but nothing met me but the hollow night and
the roaring sea and the wind. I came back, and hurried up and down and
wrung my hands in an agony. Pictures of summer nights flashed upon me
and faded,--where out of deep-blue vaults the stars hung like lamps,
great and golden,--or where soft films just hazing heaven caught the
rays, till all above gleamed like gauze faintly powdered and spangled
with silver,--or heavy with heat, slipping over silent waters, through
scented airs, under purple skies. And then storms rolled in and rose
before my eyes, distinct for a moment, and breaking,--such as I'd seen
them from the Shoals in broad daylight, when tempestuous columns
scooped themselves up from the green gulfs and shattered in loam on
the shuddering rock,--ah! but that was day, and this was midnight and
murk!--storms as I'd heard tell of them off Cape Race, when great
steamers went down with but one cry, and the waters crowded them out of
sight,--storms where, out of the wilderness of waves that far and wide
wasted white around, a single one came ploughing on straight to the
mark, gathering its grinding masses mast-high, poising, plunging, and
swamping and crashing them into bottomless pits of destruction,--storms
where waves toss and breakers gore, where, hanging on crests that slip
from under, reefs impale the hull, and drowning wretches