IV
One night after I had made my bed on a grassy sand-bank above the sea and was waiting, in the thrilling and breathless twilight, to fall asleep, I suddenly heard a sound as of a child weeping somewhere. My heart bounded in horror. I lay scarce daring to breathe, and then when there was silence again, looked up and down the shore for the person who had cried. But I saw no one. I listened—listened, expecting to hear the cry again, but only the waves turned the stones, broke, rolled up, and turned the stones again. Evening crept over the sea, and the waves looked dark and shadowy; the silence grew more intense. I turned on one side to go to sleep, and then once more came a sad, despairing human cry as of a lost child. I sat bolt upright and looked about me, and even then, whilst I stared, the cry came again, and from the sea. "Is it possible there is a child down by the waves?" I thought, and I tried to distinguish some little human shape in the darkness that seemed hastening on the shoulders of the incoming waves. There came a terrible wail and another silence. I dared not go and search, but I lay and shuddered and felt terribly lonely. The waves followed one another and followed again, ever faster and faster as it seemed in the darkness—
Still on each wave followed the wave behind,
And then another behind,
And then another behind….
They came forward fantastically, and I felt as if I were lying in the presence of something most ancient, most terrible.
Presently a bird with great dark wings flew noiselessly just over my head, and then over the sea rose the moon, young, new drest, and I forgot the strange cry in the presence of a familiar friend. It was as if a light had been brought into one's bedroom. Probably the cry was that of an owl; it came no more. I slept.