“Did you?” and again the terrific smile lit up his pale features,—“You were mistaken! I am your Enemy!”
A dreadful silence followed. Something lurid and unearthly in his expression appalled me, ... I trembled and grew cold with fear. Mechanically I replaced the pistol in its case,——then I gazed up at him with a vacant wonder and wild piteousness, seeing that his dark and frowning figure seemed to increase in stature, towering above me like the gigantic shadow of a storm-cloud! My blood froze with an unnameable sickening terror, ... then, thick darkness veiled my sight, and I dropped down senseless!
[p 457]
XL
Thunder and wild tumult,—the glare of lightning,—the shattering roar of great waves leaping mountains high and hissing asunder in mid-air,—to this fierce riot of savage elements let loose in a whirling boisterous dance of death, I woke at last with a convulsive shock. Staggering to my feet I stood in the black obscurity of my cabin, trying to rally my scattered forces,—the electric lamps were extinguished, and the lightning alone illumined the sepulchral darkness. Frantic shoutings echoed above me on deck,—fiend-like yells that sounded now like triumph, now like despair, and again like menace,—the yacht leaped to and fro like a hunted stag amid the furious billows, and every frightful crash of thunder threatened, as it seemed, to split her in twain. The wind howled like a devil in torment,—it screamed and moaned and sobbed as though endowed with a sentient body that suffered acutest agony,—anon it rushed downwards with an angry swoop as of wide-flapping wings, and at each raging gust I thought the vessel must surely founder. Forgetting everything but immediate personal danger, I tried to open my door. It was locked outside!—I was a prisoner! My indignation at this discovery exceeded every other feeling, and beating with both hands on the wooden panels, I called, I shouted, I threatened, I swore,——all in vain! Thrown down twice by the topsy-turvey
lurching of the yacht, I still kept up a desperate hammering and calling, striving to raise my voice above the distracting pandemonium of noise that seemed to possess the [p 458] ship from end to end, but all to no purpose,—and finally, hoarse and exhausted, I stopped and leaned against the unyielding door to recover breath and strength. The storm appeared to be increasing in force and clamour,—the lightning was well-nigh incessant, and the clattering thunder followed each flash so instantaneously as to leave no doubt but that it was immediately above us. I listened,—and presently heard a frenzied cry—
“Breakers ahead!” This was followed by peals of discordant laughter. Terrified, I strained my ears for every sound,—and all at once some-one spoke to me quite closely, as though the very darkness around me had found a tongue.
“Breakers ahead! Throughout the world, storm and danger and doom! Doom and Death!—but afterwards—Life!”
A certain intonation in these words filled me with such frantic horror that I fell on my knees in abject misery, and almost prayed to the God I had through all my life disbelieved in and denied. But I was too mad with fear to find words;—the dense blackness,—the horrid uproar of the wind and sea,—the infuriated and confused shouting,—all this was to my mind as though hell itself had broken loose, and I could only kneel dumbly and tremble. Suddenly a swirling sound as of an approaching monstrous whirlwind made itself heard above all the rest of the din,—a sound that gradually resolved itself into a howling chorus of thousands of voices sweeping along on the gusty blast,——fierce cries were mingled with the jarring thunder, and I leapt erect as I caught the words of the clangorous shout—
“Ave Sathanas! Ave!”