So said he, and the barge with oar and sail
Moved from the brink like some full-breasted swan
That fluting a wild carol ere her death,
Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood
With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere
Revolving many memories, till the hull
Look’d one black dot against the verge of dawn,
And on the mere the wailing died away.
TORY DREW glanced up from the pages of the book she had been reading throughout the long night.
Dawn was touching with pale fingers the outside world. The fire to which she had failed to pay any attention in the past hour was a hot bed of glowing ashes. The lamp was beginning a sputtering warning that the end of its supply of oil was drawing near.