Out of the emerald twilight we floated from beneath the overarching
thickets. Pale beams were striking from the risen sun upon the gliding
surface, and dwelt in splendour where danger sat charioted beneath a
palely gorgeous bow. Yet I doubt if ever mortal man swept on to defeat
at last so rapturously as I.
The gloomier trees had now withdrawn from the banks of the river. A
pale morning sky over-canopied the shimmering forests. Here rose the
solitary tower where Echo tarried for the Hornblower. And straight
before us, across that level floor, beyond a tremulous cloud of foam
and light and colour, lurked the unseen, the unimaginable, the
ever-dreamed-of, Death.
Heedless of Lorelei, heedless of all save the beauty and terror and
glory in which they rode, down swept snorting ship and master to doom.
The crystal water jargoned past my saddle. Sky, earth, and tower, like
the panorama of a dream, wheeled around me. Light blinded me; clamour
deafened me; foam and the pure wave and cold darkness whelmed over me.
We surged, paused, gazed, nodded, crashed:--and so an end to Ennui.
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