, lest before he should be able to reach her, her helpless
form, still living, might be washed off by the advancing waves. Thus he
spurred and lashed his horse, and drove him against rain and wind, and
through the darkness of the night.

With all his desperate haste, it was two hours before he approached the
beach. And as he drew near the heavy cannonading of the waves upon the
shore admonished him that the tide was at its highest point. He pressed
rapidly onward, threw himself from his horse, and ran forward to the
edge of the bank above the beach. It was only to meet the confirmation
of his worst fears! The waters were thundering against the bank upon
which he stood. The tide had come in and overswept the whole beach, and
now, lashed and driven by the wind, the waves tossed and raved and
roared with appalling fury.

Marian was gone, lost, swept away by the waves! that was the thought
that wrung from him a cry of fierce agony, piercing through all the
discord of the storm, as he ran up and down the shore, hoping nothing,
expecting nothing, yet totally unable to tear himself from the fatal
spot.

And so he wildly walked and raved, until his garments were drenched
through with the rain; until the storm exhausted its fury and subsided;
until the changing atmosphere, the still, severe cold, froze all his
clothing stiff around him; so he walked, groaning and crying and calling
despairingly upon the name of Marian, until the night waned and the
morning dawned, and the eastern horizon grew golden, then crimson, then
fiery with the coming sun.

The sky was clear, the waters calm, the sands bare and glistening in the
early sunbeams; no vestige of the storm or of the bloody outrage of the
night remained--all was peace and beauty. In the distance was a single
snow-white sail, floating swan-like on the bosom of the blue waters. All
around was beauty and peace, yet from the young man's tortured bosom
peace had fled, and remorse, vulture-like, had struck its talons deep
into his heart. He called himself a murderer, the destroyer of Marian;
he said it was his selfishness, his willfulness, his treachery, that had
exposed her to this danger, and brought her to this fate! Some outlaw,
some waterman, or fugitive negro had robbed and murdered her. Marian
usually wore a very valuable watch; probably, also, she had money about
her person--enough to have tempted the cupidity of some lawless wretch.
He shrank in horror from pursuing conje