And with that he slipped on his coat and boots—for he had been standing at the window half undressed—and clapping on his cap as he passed through the kitchen, strode heavily and gloomily out of the house.
On the moor he had only the breeze for company, and its long, vague wail, as it rustled across the ferns, merely deepened the moody irritation in his mind. He felt as sour as a fanatic and as gloomy as a thief.
To find the fogou, among the bewildering growth of ferns, was by no means the easiest task in the world: for the rude cave-dwelling was literally buried in the hill-side; its entrance being hidden by the rank vegetation that here reached almost to Elijah's arm-pits.
As he ploughed his way through the trackless tangle, giving vent the while to a superfluity of oaths, he presently stumbled on the entrance to the fogou, almost precipitating himself into its darkness, so suddenly had he stumbled on it, wading through the ferns.
The low and narrow tunnel in the hill-side, with its walls and roof lined with slabs of rock, was as uncanny a spot as a man could set foot in, and Elijah shook like one with the ague, as he thrust aside the ferns and peered into the blackness.
He turned round, half inclined to retreat; but, as he turned, his eyes chanced to travel to the sea, where he could still discern the fishing-boats riding at their nets; and the idea of 'Miah out there thinking of Dorcas made him clench his teeth grimly, as if he had received a blow.
He swung round on his heels sharply and determinedly, savagely trampling the ferns beneath his feet, and strode forward into the pitch-black mirk.
Groping his way in, with hands extended, he presently found the block of granite called the altar, and "turning the stone" in the hollow on its surface, he shaped the while in his heart his rancorous prayer to Hate.
Suddenly he was aware of a face staring at him: a mere face vaguely limned on the darkness, as if a bodiless head were held before him by the hair.
And in that same instant, without a word being uttered, he felt that he had looked in the face of Hate.