"By daylight," he said, "it is but a bulk of water, full enough of danger and death; but now it might be hell itself yonder, that has 'made the clouds its band.'"
He was not sure how long a portion of the night crept by. Sometime in it, however, he saw flashes of light moving through the fog among the rocks: Lufflin and the fishermen keeping watch,—"uneasy ghosts that could not pass over into Hades," he laughed, with the same miserable attempt at a joke; but the laugh died away feebly in the empty room, and it was with a grave face the Professor made his way down the dark staircase, and, finding the Captain's dread-nought coat, put it on before he ventured out into the storm. "To please Lotty," he muttered. His heart was strangely tender to-night to the only friend he had known for years.
There was a dead quiet in the fog as he came out and waited on the flagging before the house. Lufflin and George Cathcart came by, presently, carrying lanterns and ropes, their faces looking ghastly in the greenish light; their voices, too, were thin and far off as in a dream, though the Captain tried to be hearty and gruff as usual.
"Best within, Mounchere Jacobus; it's an uncertain night; best within."
"You apprehend the rain?"
"No; it's a dry storm; unpleasant on this coast. Go in; there's no telling what frenzy may seize the wind, and Charlotte is alone."
But M. Jacobus did not go in. He had observed a curious motion on the part of both men, as they talked: bending their ears at intervals to listen intently, and keeping a keen scrutiny fixed on the small patch of ground at their feet, made visible by their lanterns. He saw, too, that Cathcart stooped, as he turned from them, and, picking up a crisp, yellow flake, showed it to his companion; and he fancied, too, that the grim face of the old Captain lost its color when he saw it. He would not go in: he had a right to see what danger threatened her,—to watch for it,—to know what were these messengers of coming death sent in from the silence yonder. And at that fancy, the old wonder and dread of the far darkness seized him, and he went slowly on through the mist, forgetting alike danger and warning.
With a mocking smile on his face, as he pursued his fantastic theory. What if the dead were not dead? What if, unforgetting and cruel, they could stretch out shadowy hands from that mysterious distance which they peopled, and summon the living to join them? What if Death itself served them to-night, and crept upon Charlotte and him unawares in some horror of this coming storm? Jacobus, like all skeptics, was superstitious; but he had courage and zest enough to fight down the terror that seized him, to pamper and play with it. He threw his lank length upon the wet beach, and clasped his hands under his head; where he disturbed the sand, gleamed sudden flashes of phosphoric light; he brought them out of the darkness with his finger: "Fit writing for the dead gone over to leave upon the shore for those who should follow!" he thought.
Lying on his back, and staring straight up into the fog-covered sky, the thunder of the sea, that before had filled the whole night, seemed to his startled senses to drive its direct tide beneath him,—to articulate, at last, with a new and unexpected meaning. He shut his eyes; the terror had taken shape; he lay drenched and shivering, his brain on fire with fancies. What was vision to Dante was real to him. He lay upon the edge of the fathomless gulf, warm and living, with the cry from Hades made audible to him; as it ebbed and flowed, it wailed like the wind through leafless forests; it shook the earth to its centre, then died into the solitary cry of one in nameless pain. Some broad, dark figure stood afterwards beside him in the fog, and a voice repeated the old word of the prophet,—
"Hell from beneath is moved to meet thee at thy coming; it stirreth up the dead for thee"—