The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction | Page 6

was now so far advanced as to preclude any hope of escape from that
quarter; for the sands shelved in for some way on each side of the
projecting entrance, and if I gained the foot of the cliffs I feared that I
must inevitably be dashed to pieces before reaching the opening. In the
calmest weather on the coast, exposed to all the fury of the Atlantic, the
spring tides come in with a heavy swell; on this occasion they were
aided by the wind, and I had to retreat with precipitation before an
angry and threatening mass of waves, which broke many feet over the
spot I occupied the moment before, with a noise like a discharge of
artillery.
The night was gathering in, and the report of each successive wave,
fraught as it were with my death warrant, struck on my heart like a
funeral knell. Was there no hope of escape in the cove itself? no
difficult path to the rocks aloft? were the questions I rapidly put to
myself. An examination made as well as the darkness of the place
permitted, convinced me that my hopes were vain and transitory. I now
gave way to a sort of momentary despair; every instant was abridging
my chance of life, and the sudden and frightful feeling that you are to
be called on unprepared, to die, rushed on my mind with a choking
sensation. I listened for some time at the entrance of one of the caverns,
which the violence of the sea had excavated in picturesque confusion
round the foot of the cliffs, to the sullen moaning and 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 about
my throat as I clung to the rock for help: I fancied I could have borne
any death rather than this lingering misery.
I rallied: my feelings were unmanly. The moon had risen in unclouded
brilliancy, gleaming on the heaving and rippled surface of the dark blue
main; I looked up to the tranquil firmament, and the reflection was
bitter. Pealing along with the voice of the ocean, the wild and lofty
strains from the singular figure aloft, like a gentle brook commingling
its waters with a vast and rapid river--failed not during this time to keep
up my excitement. The sea was now fast covering the shingles; one
chance was yet before me, which the instant I reflected on, I hesitated

not to put into execution. It could at worst be only exchanging one
death for another, and death would