He sent the letter, unsatisfactory and feeble as he knew it to be. He chafed at the necessity of deferring his departure for America; but the Great Serpent was importunate, and even for love a man cannot disregard the claims of others. Engagements connected with the mine, made long since, must receive attention before he could leave Europe.
But, during the intervals of business, even pending its details, he was hourly tempted to send a dispatch and be ridiculous. But he refrained. He sailed for America four days after sending the letter. He had not been absurd; his dignity was saved. Who that is wise in a wise generation listens to intuitions?
CHAPTER XIX.
A KISS THAT MIGHT HAVE LINGERED ON HIS LIPS WHILE SEEKING ENTRANCE AT THE GATE OF HEAVEN.
At the foot of the cliff whereon Mrs. Joe had erected a monument to the Great Serpent in the form of a castle, the ocean beats in calm weather with a sullen persistence which increases with the rising wind from spiteful lashing into furious pounding against the unshaken crag, accompanied by a roar of futile rage. Stormpoint affords no nook of shelter for a distressed craft, and the rocks, submerged beneath the vexed waters, render the coast hereabout even more dangerous than does the sheer wall of stone which appals the mariner caught in the storm and driven shoreward. Once around the point, the little harbor of Easthampton offers safety, but it has happened that vessels, unable to weather Stormpoint, have been dashed against the rocks and human beings have been tossed about in the seething foam beneath the crags; or men have clung to wreckage in sight of wailing wives and mothers, and of children to be orphaned in the rush of the next black billow.
From the rocks hereabout no lifeboat can be launched at times when lifeboats are needed, therefore the coast-guard station is nearer the harbor, where there is a beach upon which the waves slide upward, spending their strength, and where even in the storm they can be ridden by resolute men; but no boat can live among the rocks in the raging waters beneath the cliff. And so, Mrs. Joe, with the approval of the authorities, had built on the ledge of the cliffside (enlarged and widened for the purpose) a house, in which were kept appliances for casting lines athwart wrecked craft. There were plenty to ridicule the benevolent lady, some on the score of the futility of preparing for an improbable disaster (less than a dozen ships had been lost there in a century; and probably not, in all that time, a hundred lives); others because while yet another ship might be driven thither, no human effort could then avert her doom. Mrs. Joe, notwithstanding these arguments, carried out her intention, and waited, hoping that she would never be justified by the event.
One day Natalie and Leonard were in the "wreck house," as the structure had come to be called; a high wind, constantly increasing, was blowing, and from their position they saw all the grandeur of the ocean, rolling in majesty toward the wall of rock, an assailing mass, seeming inspired with malevolent intelligence and boundless strength, but, caught by the sunken rocks, the onset would be broken, and, bellowing with rage, each mighty billow would recede, only to be followed by another, as angry and as awful of aspect as the last.
It was a sight before which human passion was cowed and human pride was humbled. As Leonard watched Natalie, silently contemplating the grandeur of the scene, her dark hair blowing back from the smooth white brow, beneath which eyes, as unfathomable as the ocean itself, looked yearningly out into the storm, he had a clear perception that the emotions he had harbored and nourished as to this woman were unworthy of the soul in her fathomless eyes. In the presence of nature, feebly stirred as yet, but with a promise of the mighty strength restrained, and perhaps, too, his nobler self responding unconsciously to the purity of the woman at his side, the grosser passion that had vexed him was subdued; desire for the woman was lost in desire to share the woman's heart.
The darkening heavens sinking into the gloom of the ocean, where in the distance the rolling masses of cloud and water seemed to meet, the roaring wind, the waves booming on the cliff, and the boiling cauldron of death beneath their feet—in the presence of these things words could not utter thoughts unutterable; they stood long silent.