"There is no hell," he cried, getting up and staggering forward,—then smiled at his own folly.
It might have been Lufflin who had spoken, after all; he was well read in the Bible. But he could see no sign of their torches, in the stretch of damp, darkening fog; he was left alone to keep guard.
Jacobus tried to shake off his sickly fancies, and measure coolly whatever danger waited in this strange night; but it rose before him in a form so ghastly and new that his strength was but as a woman's. He was but a landsman,—dull and ignorant besides, outside his library. What was he to do, when the very ground trembled beneath his feet,—when the sky was blotted out,—when, there was lack of a single known stationary object to guide eye or ear? This side of that gray horizon of darkness which absorbed all his fears, the northern lights streamed up, a pale orange glare, and showed him a heavy, impenetrable bulwark of shadow, that rose closer and closer with each throb of the breakers, walling out the sea. His feet sank curiously in the yielding sand, as if he stood at the verge of a maelstrom. Some rough hand griping his shoulder roused him from his daze.
"Cathcart!" he said; then pointing out, "what lies yonder, George? It might be Death's world, I think!"
The fisherman's arm shook, he fancied; but he answered steadily, in his usual piping, weak tones,—
"It don't matter whether it's God's world or the Devil's world, as I see, so long as it kin send ashore a grip on us like that,"—glancing down at his feet, where Jacobus saw the yellow, flaky foam curling up from under the sand. He stooped leisurely to examine it.
"What does this portend?" he asked.
"God! it be the tide, man," shrieked out Cathcart, with an oath. "Can't you see that it's broken over the topmost boundaries? You be standing now above the level of your own house."
One swift, sharp glance was enough to waken him into real life out of his vague dreams. The man, nervous and fierce, that had been smothered in the unable bookworm so long, sprang up to cope with the sudden death that faced him.
"You be too late!" he heard Cathcart's shrill cry, as he fought his way through the surging surf; and at the same moment there was a heavy crash,—where, he could not see.