dashing of the tide, when my attention was rivetted by the sweet music
of a female voice on the heights above, singing in a wild and elevated
strain. It came over me with a sense so deep and clear, that I listened
for a few minutes as if my life were in every note. At this instant a
fishing boat passed under sail near the mouth of the cove. I shouted
with despair, but my voice was lost in the echo of the rocks; it passed
fleeting by, and with it my last chance of life. The shout had aroused
the strange singer; she arose, advanced to the very extremity of the
precipice, where one quiver would have been certain death, and flinging
her arms towards the ocean, called out as I imagined from her gestures,
to some imagined form. What could this fair apparition mean? I
distinctly saw her tall white figure and hair on the sky line (for the
moon was near rising) fluttering in the wind. She must either be mad or
a spirit, I exclaimed, shouting again and again to her for help; but
either my words were lost in the distance, or she regarded them not, for
she seated herself, and began to sing in the same wild style as before.
This was most extraordinary: a momentary tinge of superstition passed
across my mind, but it was speedily dissipated by the exclusive feelings
of my situation. Slowly did I see the waves dashing forward to their
destined goal, hemming in every chance of escape. I retreated step by
step till I reached the shingles, as if greedy of the space which
measured out to me my last race of life. My existence was in a span.
Great God! I exclaimed, am I then to perish thus--"without a grave,
unkennelled, uncoffined, and unknown"--my once sunny home--those faces
dearer than heart's blood--the days of my childhood passed over my
spirit--my mind was crowded with the images of by-gone days; half an
hour more and this breathing form would be clay. Yet how dreadful a
death! my poor dog howled and looked up in my face as a violent rush of
tide burst against the base of the rocks. Already I imagined the sea
around me, lessening my moments of life inch by inch--the tide bubbling