In this scene of horror unutterable, Britomarte was beaten about, now driven out to sea, now dashed in towards the land; and through all one sublime thought exalted her soul above all the despair of the situation:
“We are immortal souls and cannot be destroyed! We are spirits and must live forever!”
At last she felt herself lifted up by an enormous wave, that, roaring as in triumph over its prey, bore her forward with great velocity and threw her with deadly force upon the shore; and with the shock she lost her consciousness.
CHAPTER XI.
LADY ROBINSON CRUSOE.
When Britomarte awoke from that deadly state of insensibility into which the tremendous mental and physical shock had cast her, her recovery seemed like coming back to life in the grave. At first she did not know what sort of creature she was, or what state of existence she had come into. Neither memory nor thought was present with her. There was only a bodily sense of uneasiness, as the air again inflated her collapsed lungs, and the vital current resumed its flow through her damp, chilled and heavy limbs; and a mortal sense of vague despair, impossible to analyze.
Instinctively she turned over and tried to rise; faintly she perceived that the palms of her hands were deep in the moist sand, and that they went deeper as she bore her weight upon them in her efforts to get up. And thus she discovered that she was on the ground.
At length, after several fruitless attempts, she succeeded in lifting herself to a sitting position. And then she looked blindly around. But nothing was to be seen. All was dark as pitch. And nothing was to be heard except the thunder of the sea upon the coast—a sound that impressed her senses like some dimly remembered knell of doom.
She put her hands up to her head, and tried to struggle forth from this state of mental dullness and confusion. She tried to think and remember who she was, what had happened, and how she came to this hades of darkness and desolation! In vain! as well might a newborn infant try to recall the events of its pre-existence, supposing it ever to have had one. With all her striving to come forth from chaos, she could only arrive at a dim, mysterious consciousness of infinite loss and eternal despair. Was she a disembodied spirit, then? Was this really hell? Had she come to it? And for what sin? No, but such spirits had not flesh and blood, as she felt too sensibly that she had.
What then?
The ceaseless beating of the waves upon the shore was a familiar and suggestive sound, and troubled her with glimpses of memory that flitted in and out of her mind like ghosts in a graveyard.