Thus he
spurred and lashed his horse, and drove him against rain and wind, and
through the darkness of the night.
With all his desperate haste, it was two hours before he approached the
beach. And as he drew near the heavy cannonading of the waves upon the
shore admonished him that the tide was at its highest point. He pressed
rapidly onward, threw himself from his horse, and ran forward to the
edge of the bank above the beach. It was only to meet the confirmation
of his worst fears! The waters were thundering against the bank upon
which he stood. The tide had come in and overswept the whole beach, and
now, lashed and driven by the wind, the waves tossed and raved and
roared with appalling fury.
Marian was gone, lost, swept away by the waves! that was the thought
that wrung from him a cry of fierce agony, piercing through all the
discord of the storm, as he ran up and down the shore, hoping nothing,
expecting nothing, yet totally unable to tear himself from the fatal
spot.
And so he wildly walked and raved, until his garments were drenched
through with the rain; until the storm exhausted its fury and subsided;
until the changing atmosphere, the still, severe cold, froze all his
clothing stiff around him; so he walked, groaning and crying and calling
despairingly upon the name of Marian, until the night waned and the
morning dawned, and the eastern horizon grew golden, then crimson, then
fiery with the coming sun.
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