I can see you, my beloved,—sleeping, naked, in the twilight of the west. The winds kiss you with pure and fragrant lips. The sensuous waves invite you to their embrace. Earth again offers you her varied store. Partake of her offering, and be satisfied. Return, O troubled soul! to your first and natural joys: they were given you by the Divine hand that can do no ill. In the smoke of the sacrifice ascends the prayer of your race. As the incense fadeth and is scattered upon the winds of heaven, so shall your people separate, never more to assemble among the nations. So perish your superstitions, your necromancies, your ancient arts of war, and the unwritten epics of your kings.
Alas, Kána-aná! As the foam of the sea you love, as the fragrance of the flower you worship, shall your precious body be wasted, and your untrammelled soul pass to the realms of your fathers.
Our day of communion is over. Behold how Night extends her wings to cover you from my sight! She may, indeed, hide your presence; she may withhold from me the mystery of your future: but she cannot take from me that which I have; she cannot rob me of the rich influences of your past.
Dear comrade, pardon and absolve your spiritual adviser, for seeking to remould so delicate and original a soul as yours; and, though neither prophet nor priest, I yet give you the kiss of peace at parting, and the benediction of unceasing love.
PART III.
BARBARIAN DAYS.
WE had been watching intently the faint, shadowy outline along the horizon, and wondering whether it were really land, or but a cloudy similitude of it; while we bore down upon it all the afternoon in fine style, and the breeze freshened as evening came on. It was all clear sailing, and we were in pretty good spirits,—which is not always the case with landsmen at sea.
Sitting there on the after-deck, I had asked myself, more than once, If life were made up of placid days like this, how long would life be sweet? I gave it up every time; for one is not inclined to consider so curiously as to press any problem to a solution in those indolent latitudes.
Perhaps it was Captain Kidd who told me he had sailed out of a twelve-knot breeze on a sudden,—slipping off the edges of it, as it were,—and found his sails all aback as he slid into a dead calm. There, rocking in still weather, he saw another bark, almost within hail, blown into the west and out of sight, like a bird in a March gale.
I wonder what caused me to think of Kidd's experiences just then. I can't imagine, unless it was some prescient shadow floating in my neighbourhood,—the precursor of the little event that followed. Such things do happen, and when we least expect it; though, fortunately, they don't worry us as a general thing. I didn't worry at all, but sat there by myself, while some of my fellow-passengers took a regular "constitutional" up and down the deck, and over and over it, until the nervous woman below in the cabin "blessed her stars," and wished herself ashore.
I preferred sitting and pondering over the cloud that seemed slowly to rise from the sea, assuming definite and undeniable appearances of land.