Antonius was banished to the cavern by the sea, where never came sound, save the ocean’s roar when lashed by the demons of the gale, or its sad murmur and ceaseless break and splash in its moments of slumber and rest.
But, most terrible of all the manifestations of the unfortunate Antonius’ fearful ailment was the utterly wild and ungovernable rapidity of his speech.
Like maddened steeds, tongue and lips rushed along!
To the eyes and ears of the Slow Movers, such a violently expressive face, such mad rapidity of utterance, were death itself!
Not one brief month would have found a living statue in that home of flinty hearts, had Antonius not gone!
Antonius was thankful for that dread decree, which housed him forever in the cavern by the sea!
He saw the sufferings of his people, and though his eyes in that brief time wept more tears than all his brethren ever had shed in their sluggish lives, yet were they but a poor proof of the awful grief he felt.
Antonius turned towards me as I approached the spot where he sat wrapped in deep meditation. A sad, but withal kindly smile flitted about his lips, like the quick but faint glimmer of the lightning in the distant sky.
He rose.
I paused to await his bidding to approach him.