But then, as at some signal from heaven, the music, and the carols,
and the sweet echoing of girlish laughter,---all are hushed.
What evil has smitten the pinnace, meeting or overtaking her? Did ruin
to our friends couch within our own dreadful shadow? Was our shadow the
shadow of death? I looked over the bow for an answer, and, behold! the
pinnace was dismantled; the revel and the revellers were found no more;
the glory of the vintage was dust; and the forests with their beauty
were left without a witness upon the seas. "But where," and I turned to
our crew---"where are the lovely women that danced beneath the awning of
flowers and clustering corynibi? Whither have fled the noble young men
that danced with _them?_" Answer there was none. But suddenly the man
at the masthead, whose countenance darkened with alarm, cried out, "Sail
on the weather beam! Down she comes upon us; in seventy seconds she
also will founder,"
II.
I looked to the weather side, and the summer had departed.
The sea was rocking, and shaking with gathering wrath. Upon
its surface sat mighty mists, which grouped themselves into arches
and long cathedral aisles.
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