uder and yet more
despairing. A dark curtain of cloud was lifted up, and a pale blue rent
shone between its foot and the edge of the sea, out from which rushed an
icy storm of frozen wind, that tore the waters into spray as it passed,
and flung the billows in raving heaps upon the desolate shore. I could
bear it no longer.

"I will not be tortured to death," I cried; "I will meet it half-way.
The life within me is yet enough to bear me up to the face of Death, and
then I die unconquered."

Before it had grown so dark, I had observed, though without any
particular interest, that on one part of the shore a low platform of
rock seemed to run out far into the midst of the breaking waters.

Towards this I now went, scrambling over smooth stones, to which scarce
even a particle of sea-weed clung; and having found it, I got on it, and
followed its direction, as near as I could guess, out into the tumbling
chaos. I could hardly keep my feet against the wind and sea. The waves
repeatedly all but swept me off my path; but I kept on my way, till I
reached the end of the low promontory, which, in the fall of the waves,
rose a good many feet above the surface, and, in their rise, was covered
with their waters. I stood one moment and gazed into the heaving abyss
beneath me; then plunged headlong into the mounting wave below. A
blessing, like the kiss of a mother, seemed to alight on my soul; a
calm, deeper than that which accompanies a hope deferred, bathed my
spirit. I sank far into the waters, and sought not to return. I felt as
if once more the great arms of the beech-tree were around me, soothing
me after the miseries I had passed through, and telling me, like a
little sick child, that I should be better to-morrow. The waters of
themselves lifted me, as with loving arms, to the surface. I breathed
again, but did not unclose my eyes. I would not look on the wintry sea,
and the pitiless gray sky. Thus I floated, till something gently touched
me. It was a little boat floating beside me. How it came there I could
not tell; but it rose and sank on the waters, and kept touching me in
its fall, as if with a human will to let me know that help was by me. It
was a little gay-coloured boat, seemingly covered with glistering scales
like those of a fish, all of brilliant rainbow hues. I scrambled into
it, and lay down in the bottom, with a sense of exquisite repose.

Then I drew over me a rich, heavy, purple cloth that was beside me; and,