ith the foam of their flight.
Could such a descent as this be intended for a type of death? Clementina
asked. Was it not rather as if, from a corner of the tomb behind, she saw
the back parts of a resurrection and ascension--warmth, outshining,
splendor; departure from the door of the tomb; exultant memory; tarnishing
gold, red fading to russet; fainting of spirit, loneliness; deepening blue
and green; pallor, grayness, coldness; out-creeping stars;
further-reaching memory; the dawn of infinite hope and foresight; the
assurance that under passion itself lay a better and holier mystery? Here
was God's naughty child, the world, laid asleep and dreaming--if not
merrily, yet contentedly--and there was the sky, with all the day gathered
and hidden up in its blue, ready to break forth again in laughter on the
morrow, bending over its skyey cradle like a mother; and there was the
aurora, the secret of life, creeping away round to the north to be ready.
Then first, when the slow twilight had fairly settled into night, did
Clementina begin to know the deepest marvel of this facet of the
rose-diamond life! God's night and sky and sea were hers now, as they had
been Malcolm's from childhood. And when the nets had been paid out, and
sunk straight into the deep, stretched betwixt leads below and floats and
buoys above, extending a screen of meshes against the rush of the watery
herd; when the sails were down, and the whole vault of stars laid bare to
her eyes as she lay; when the boat was still, fast to the nets, anchored
as it were by hanging acres of curtain, and all was silent as a church,
waiting, and she might dream or sleep or pray as she would, with nothing
about her but peace and love and the deep sea, and over her but still
peace and love and the deeper sky, then the soul of Clementina rose and
worshipped the soul of the universe; her spirit clave to the Life of her
life, the Thought of her thought, the Heart of her heart; her will bowed
itself to the Creator of will, worshipping the supreme, original, only
Freedom--the Father of her love, the Father of Jesus Christ, the God of
the hearts of the universe, the Thinker of all thoughts, the Beginner of
all beginnings, the All-in-all. It was her first experience of speechless
adoration.

Most of the men were asleep in the bows of the boat: all were lying down
but one. That one was Malcolm. He had come aft and seated himself under
the platform, leaning against it. The boat rose a