Where had he seen that handsome handwriting before? It was somewhere away back in the dim past; but when or where he could not recall, and the more he tried to remember the more puzzled he grew. Neither could he imagine what the danger was that lurked in his path.
Had he been in a country among barbarians, he might well give heed to such a warning; but here, in such a quiet town, where almost every one gave his attention to cultivation and learning, it could not be possible that any very great danger could threaten him.
Still, the more he meditated upon it, the more uneasy he grew.
By this time he had reached the summit of the cliff.
The prospect from this point was attractive. Far, far away as the eye could reach was the sea in all its grandeur, and reflecting from its silver bosom the many-tinted glories of yonder sky, while just at his feet its waves gently washed the huge crags with its foam and yellow sands; and involuntarily he murmured those beautiful lines from Tennyson’s pen:
“Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, oh, sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.”
With a feeling half of pleasure, half of melancholy at his heart, he turned to leave the enchanted spot, when a shrill cry, as of some one in pain, startled him.