s
feet so cruelly, that he shrank at the prospect of intensified pain
through all the innumerable wounds he bore. He saw exposed a pitiful,
unstable wretch, with a body drained of strength and nerve, and a spirit
servile to base instances. In desperate spite he plunged and swam.

He had ever waited for an outgoing tide; he had ever taken a daylight
tide; now for his sins he had night and the flood against him. But still
the moon blessed him. Delusions beset him that pains of his body came
from the very teeth of sea-creatures, too fierce and many for him to
cope with, crowding, dragging, gnawing hard at his life. For ease a
passive moment and a little painful, airless sobbing would suffice:
soonest, best. And had the pale moon darkened, he had gone under as at a
supreme command, to such depravity and destitution were come his vital
instincts. But, her light holding him alive, by hard degrees he won his
way, till, for the last time, he stood upon the Isle Sinister.

But when he had made his way through the narrow gorge, and trod sand, the
moon was dark, and night fell upon his heart. He dared not call, and
neither sight nor sound granted him assurance of Diadyomene's presence.
Wanting her footprints to tell she had passed in, he feared lest he
should be barring her very entrance. He fell down and prayed, being
without resource.

And Lois was praying, and Rhoda with bitter tears, and the House Monitory
with the ring of its bells. Very faint was the moan of the sea in their
ears.

Slowly, slowly, the blessed moon stepped out, and lifted him up and
delivered to his sight the track of light feet set from seaward--one
track only. In haste, by the wavering light of the moon, he laid out the
threaded rowan and weighted one end against the rock. The whole length
extended came short of the further wall by about two feet.

He rallied from the momentary shock, resolving that he himself could
stand in the gap to bar passage.

No form nor motion could he discern within his range as in slow scrutiny
his eyes sought her from side to side. He lighted on despair; the
entrance to the cavern had escaped his providence.

In the dark he went to the low arch, and felt about the sand inch by inch
for the dint of her feet. Naught could he find. Yet what did it profit
him that she had not yet passed? To drop prone on the sand was his poor
conclusion, abandoned to despair.

He was but cast back on the morning's portion, then of fair suffi