A little before midnight the wind dropped, although there was a heavy sea still running. Through a dimly woven mist we could see the stars faintly shining between the masses of black clouds rolling across the wind-swept sky. But there was no moon; nothing to show us whither we were drifting upon the waste of waters. There was something inexpressibly weird in that darkness. It seemed less a blank darkness than a darkness of moving shapes and figures—a living darkness, somehow suggesting death. It will live in my memory forever.
"Do you mind dying, Lumley?" I asked him once.
"Yes," he answered solemnly, "I do. I am just learning how sweet it would be to live."
I held him tighter, for at that moment a great wave had broken over us. I dreaded nothing but separation.
"Supposing that, if we lived, something came between us?" I whispered. "Suppose there was something between us which nothing could alter, nothing could move—what then?"
"I cannot suppose it," he answered. "Nothing could come between us that I would not overcome—nothing in life."
"Still, if it were so?" I persisted.
"Then I would sooner die like this if we are to die. We are in God's hands."
I shuddered at that last sentence. If indeed we were on the threshold of eternity, what had I to hope from God? Alas! at that moment my earthly love was so strong that the fear of death was weak and faint.
We sat there silent and full of strange emotions, and expecting every moment the end to come. All of a sudden, we both of us gave a great cry, and my lover leaped up so that our boat rocked violently and nearly capsized. For my part, I sat still, gazing, with distended eyes and parted lips, upon the strangest sight which I had ever seen.