an
these waves set free to play. They disturb me. I will no more of their
ill-timed brawling.--Silence, hoary One!--Winds, avaunt!--to your
homes!--Clouds, fly to the antipodes, and leave our heaven clear!"

As he spoke, he stretched out his two long lank arms, that looked like
spiders' claws, and seemed to embrace with them the expanse before him.
Was it a miracle? The clouds became broken, and fled; the azure sky
first peeped out, and then was spread a calm field of blue above us; the
stormy gale was exchanged to the softly breathing west; the sea grew
calm; the waves dwindled to riplets.

"I like obedience even in these stupid elements," said the dwarf, "How
much more in the tameless mind of man! It was a well got up storm, you
must allow--and all of my own making."

It was tempting Providence to interchange talk with this magician. But
_Power_, in all its shapes, is venerable to man. Awe, curiosity, a
clinging fascination, drew me towards him.

"Come, don't be frightened, friend," said the wretch: "I am good-humored
when pleased; and something does please me in your well-proportioned
body and handsome face, though you look a little woe-begone. You have
suffered a land--I, a sea wreck. Perhaps I can allay the tempest of your
fortunes as I did my own. Shall we be friends?"--And he held out his
hand; I could not touch it. "Well, then, companions--that will do as
well. And now, while I rest after the buffeting I underwent just now,
tell me why, young and gallant as you seem, you wander thus alone and
downcast on this wild sea-shore."

The voice of the wretch was screeching and horrid, and his contortions
as he spoke were frightful to behold. Yet he did gain a kind of
influence over me, which I could not master, and I told him my tale.
When it was ended, he laughed long and loud; the rocks echoed back the
sound; hell seemed yelling around me.

"Oh, thou cousin of Lucifer!" said he; "so thou too hast fallen through
thy pride; and, though bright as the son of Morning, thou art ready to
give up thy good looks, thy bride, and thy well-being, rather than
submit thee to the tyranny of good. I honor thy choice, by my soul! So
thou hast fled, and yield the day; and mean to starve on these rocks,
and to let the birds peck out thy dead eyes, while thy enemy and thy
betrothed rejoice in thy ruin. Thy pride is strangely akin to humility,
methinks."

As he spoke, a thousand fanged thoughts stung me to the heart.

"What woul