Author: Fergus Hume
Release Date: January, 2004 [EBook #4946] [Yes,
we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This
file was first posted on April 3, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** Start of the project gutenberg
EBOOK Madame Midas ***
Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.
Fergus Hume
CAST UP BY THE SEA
A wild bleak-looking coast, with huge water-worn promontories
jutting out into the sea, daring the tempestuous fury
of the waves, which dashed furiously in sheets of
seething foam against the iron rocks. Two of
these headlands ran out for a considerable distance,
and at the base of each, ragged cruel-looking rocks
stretched still further out into the ocean until they
entirely disappeared beneath the heaving waste of
waters, and only the sudden line of white foam every
now and then streaking the dark green waves betrayed
their treacherous presence to the idle eye. Between
these two headlands there was about half a mile of
yellow sandy beach on which the waves rolled with
a dull roar, fringing the wet sands with many coloured
wreaths of sea-weed and delicate shells. At the
back the cliffs rose in a kind of semi-circle, black
and precipitous, to the height of about a hundred
feet, and flocks of white seagulls who had their nests
therein were constantly circling round, or flying seaward
with steadily expanded wings and discordant cries.
At the top of these inhospitable-looking cliffs a
line of pale green betrayed the presence of vegetation,
and from thence it spread inland into vast-rolling
pastures ending far away at the outskirts of the bush,
above which could be seen giant mountains with snow-covered
ranges. Over all this strange contrast of savage
arid coast and peaceful upland there was a glaring
red sky—not the delicate evanescent pink
of an ordinary sunset—but a fierce angry
crimson which turned the wet sands and dark expanse
of ocean into the colour of blood. Far away westward,
where the sun—a molten ball of fire—was
sinking behind the snow-clad peaks, frowned long lines
of gloomy clouds—like prison bars through
which the sinking orb glowed fiercely. Rising
from the east to the zenith of the sky was a huge black
cloud bearing a curious resemblance to a gigantic
hand, the long lean fingers of which were stretched
threateningly out as if to grasp the land and drag
it back into the lurid sea of blood; altogether a
cruel, weird-looking scene, fantastic, unreal, and
bizarre as one of Dore’s marvellous conceptions.
Suddenly on the red waters there appeared a black
speck, rising and falling with the restless waves,
