Wild Margaret

by Charles Garvice

After a few minutes the dull roar of the rising tide seemed to exercise a fascination over her; and presently she felt no desire to reach the station, only a great longing to be alone by the side of the vast ocean, whose solemn, measured beat seemed like an awful voice calling to her.

She reached the foot of the rock, toward which the fisherman had pointed when he told her of the accident that had happened to the man and woman two years ago.

The tide had not touched it yet, and painfully she clutched its rugged surface up which a few hours ago she could have sprung easily.

At the top she sunk down exhausted, her face toward the sea, her eyes fixed on the bank of cloud, that like the giant in the Eastern fable, who escaped from the open bottle, had expanded and grown into a huge mass, which had ingulfed the sun, and threatened, as it seemed, to swallow the whole sky.

How long she lay there, hidden from the sight of the village, motionless and almost lifeless, she knew not; but suddenly she heard the lap, lap of water below her, and looking down, saw that the tide had crept round the rock, and was gradually but swiftly rising.

She regarded its sullen approach with heavy, listless eyes. All power of thought, much less appreciation of her peril, had deserted her. The sound of the waves, the dull booming of the wind fell upon her ear almost soothingly.

The day seemed to close and night to fall; the storm-clouds were right over her, and enveloped the earth as with a pall.

Suddenly the darkness was broken by a vivid flash of lightning, and the thunder roared and seemed to shake the rock on which she lay. At the same moment she felt her right foot grow cold, and looking down, saw that the tide had reached and covered it.

Then, for the first time, she awoke from her stupor, and realized that death and she were face to face.

With that instinct of self-preservation, that shrinking from the horror of death which comes to even the most miserable, she sprung to her feet and crawled to the highest point of the rock, and looked wildly round.