"'Lost!' he said, 'ay, for forty-three years: and here, here I find myself!'
"We dipped, and the wash of the water came about our bows. The block of ice swerved, made a sluggish half-pirouette and dropped astern.
"'Come!' I shrieked again faintly.
"With the echo of my cry he was a phantom, a blot, had vanished in the rearward fog; and thereout a little joyous laugh came to me.
"And that was a queer good-bye for ever, wasn't it?"
THE BLACK REAPER
PROEM
Heaven's Nursery
"Sinner, sinner, whence do you come?"
"From the bitter earth they called my home."
"Sinner, sinner, why do you wait?"
"I fear to knock at the golden gate: