The Project Gutenberg EBook of Beatrice, by H. Rider Haggard

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Beatrice

Author: H. Rider Haggard

Release Date: April 5, 2006 [EBook #3096]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEATRICE ***

Produced by John Bickers; Dagny

BEATRICE

by H. Rider Haggard

First Published in 1893.

TO

BEATRICE

"Oh, kind is Death that Life's long trouble closes,
Yet at Death's coming Life shrinks back affright;
It sees the dark hand,--not that it encloses
A cup of light.

So oft the Spirit seeing Love draw nigh
As 'neath the shadow of destruction, quakes,
For Self, dark tyrant of the Soul, must die,
When Love awakes.

Aye, let him die in darkness! But for thee,--
Breathe thou the breath of morning and be free!"

Rueckert. Translated by F. W. B.

BEATRICE

CHAPTER I

A MIST WRAITH

The autumn afternoon was fading into evening. It had been cloudy
weather, but the clouds had softened and broken up. Now they were lost
in slowly darkening blue. The sea was perfectly and utterly still. It
seemed to sleep, but in its sleep it still waxed with the rising tide.
The eye could not mark its slow increase, but Beatrice, standing upon
the farthest point of the Dog Rocks, idly noted that the long brown
weeds which clung about their sides began to lift as the water took
their weight, till at last the delicate pattern floated out and lay like
a woman's hair upon the green depth of sea. Meanwhile a mist was growing
dense and soft upon the quiet waters. It was not blown up from the west,
it simply grew like the twilight, making the silence yet more silent and
blotting away the outlines of the land. Beatrice gave up studying the
seaweed and watched the gathering of these fleecy hosts.

"What a curious evening," she said aloud to herself, speaking in a low
full voice. "I have not seen one like it since mother died, and that
is seven years ago. I've grown s