g, sighing, and shuddering.

'How near is its coming?' he asked, and but half heeding she told,
counting by the terms of the moon.

'Agonistes, how I know not, my deep, strong love of the sea grows
somewhat faint when the hour draws near to dream; and the land, the poor,
hard, unsatisfying land, grows some degrees dearer. Ah! but I loathe it
after, when my life again beats strong and true with the pulse of the
deep. Keep you far from me then, lest I hate you--yes, even you--hate you
to death.'

'Rather bid me here, to watch out the night with you.'

'I forbid it!' she said, suddenly fierce and wary. 'Take heed! Wilful,
deliberate trespass against my express will shall find no pity, no
pardon.'

Quick she saw that, intemperate, she had startled her prey; therefore she
amended, smiling sadly.

'See you how those diverse tides sway me even now. Agonistes, were you
not of the land--did you share the sea--then may be--ah, ah----

'I will try to tell you. An awful sense of desolation falls, for I feel
dry earth underfoot, and thin air, and I hear the sea moaning for me, but
turn where I will I cannot see nor reach it: it lies beyond a lost path,
and the glories, blisses, and strengths it gives me wither and die. And
then horrors of the land close round me.

'What are they? I know not; they whirl past me so that their speed
conceals them; yet, as streaks, are they hideous and ghastly. And I hear
fearful sounds of speech, but not one distinct, articulate word. And in
my dream I know that if any one stays, stands, confronts me, to be seen
fully in the eyes and heard out clear from the din, all my joy of the sea
would lie dead for ever, and the very way back would vanish.'

Christian had his own incomparable vision of the magic of the sea to
oppose and ponder.

'Ah! you cannot comprehend, for I tell of it by way of the senses, and
they are without, but this is within: in my veins, my breath, my fibres
of life. It is I--me.'

'I can, ah! I can.'

'Yet the dear heart of the sea holds me fast through all; with imperious
kindness it seizes my will when my love grows slackest, and draws me out
of the shallows; and down, and down I drift, like weed.'

'Diadyomene, have you never defied your fear, and kept from sleep, and
kept from the sea?'

Her voice sank. 'If I did--my dream might--come true.

'Agonistes, what I saw in your eyes was--I doubted--my dream--coming
true.

'No; I will not look again.'

Christian's v