ice
calling to him from a tomb. Alone on that little, sea-grit isle,
trembling beneath the waves that beat upon it, and in the fast-gathering
darkness he stood for a moment spellbound. All the ghostly tales he had
been told of this spot came to him in an instant and with the force of
truth, and had he at that moment beheld some spectral figure rise from
among the black rocks he would not have been surprised. Then feeling
his strength leaving him, he turned and ran as fast as he could back to
where he had built the shelter. With trembling hands he managed to start
a fire and sat down beside it. It was a little comfort, but not enough
to drive away the dread that seemed to increase as the night grew
blacker. He dared not use his small stock of fuel except sparingly,
fearing it would not last till morning, and he should be left in total
darkness. Back of him was the impassable thicket, and in front the
rock-bound shore, and as he listened to the booming of the surges he
could see, just in the edge of the zone of light, those eyeless sockets
and that mocking grin ever hovering near. Then as the night wore on and
the wind increased, slowly rising and falling and rising again, each
time a little louder, came that ominous, bellowing sound. It was not
like that of any creature he had ever heard or dreamed of, but rather
the menace of some horrible monster unknown to earth or air. All the
stories of hideous shapes that dwelt beneath the ocean waves, and all
the old legends of the sea and its unknown denizens, came to him, and
ever mingling with these phantasms that seemed to be crawling all about
was that grinning skull.

Solitude and night on a lonely shore, far removed from human kind,
inevitably produces in the mind strange effects. All ordinary reasoning
is set at naught and common sense goes astray. The nearness of the
unknown and unapproachable ocean; the ever varying and menacing sounds
that issue from it; the leaping and curling billows that, like white and
black demons, seem trying to engulf the earth and make even the rocks
tremble--all have a weird and uncanny influence. In their presence the
imagination runs riot and the ghostly and supernatural usurp reason.
Spectral shapes crawl out of dark fissures and leap from rock to rock
and hideous sea monsters creep in the verge of shadows. To be alone on a
small island of evil repute and many miles out in the ocean, as Manson
was, was to have this weird influence more than