THE MARAE. 365 



the comfort connected with it. Kneel I could not; but if ever man 

 breathed sincere and solemn aspirations to his Maker, they were 

 breathed by me during that night. 



Calmed by this appeal to the Almighty, and keeping my mind 

 steadily away from my bodily torments, I looked around me : the 

 moon was rising over a wooded height on the left, and the tops of the 

 loftiest trees of the surrounding grove were just becoming tinged with 

 silvery light ; all else was buried in profound gloom. The rush of the 

 breeze through the foliage produced a gentle murmuring; whilst the 

 sound of the distant surf came like music, alternately rising and 

 falling. 



All my feelings assumed a devotional and spiritual cast, and, as I 

 gradually rallied and became excited, the sights and sounds around 

 me ministered to my peculiar sensibilities. I looked on the Cross, 

 and the thoughts of a merciful and protecting God inspired me with 

 resignation. Often and often had I been surrounded by peril, and 

 as often had 1 escaped, sometimes almost miraculously ; and hope, 

 which seemed to have been banished during my paroxysm of suffer- 

 ing, again returned to my aid ; and 1 did hope, though I could not 

 even fancy, any possible chance of escape. I did hope, even though 

 the conviction was strong within me, that my present purgatory 

 formed but the programme of still severer torments, and of a cruel 

 and lingering death. The whispering of the breeze brought with it 

 consolation, and I listened to its varied murmurs, till I worked 

 myself into the belief that it spoke of human sympathy and of human 

 aid. 



After a time, however, these soothing trains of feelings yielded 

 before the horrible reality of my situation ; my mind lost its healthy 

 elasticity. I invoked help when the invocation was useless; and, in 

 the bitterness of my anguish, prayed for ruin and woe upon those who 

 held me prisoner. The moon had risen, and illuminated the masses 

 of foliage surrounding the temple : I looked at the waving branches 

 tossing free in the wind, and I deemed it in my folly a mockery of 

 my sufferings. I gazed on the placid and lovely face of heaven, 

 with the stars shining down upon me with their eternal tranquillity, 

 and I wondered that the course of nature was unchanged, because I 

 a poor worm was struggling in bonds. The very whisper of the 

 breeze came loaded with frightful sounds, and I worked myself into 

 a state of mental torture, which was powerful enough to overcome 

 my physical pain. 



As my eyes wandered from point to point, my attention became 

 fixed upon a monstrous head, which seemed to be emerging from the 

 gloom a few yards before me : as I knew not in what shape or at 

 what hour my tormentors would assail me, I absolutely yelled with 

 horror as this frightful object gradually developed itself; lineament 

 after lineament became visible, till it stood forth in strong relief, as a 

 gigantic head of the most horrible and uncouth form. My excited 

 imagination invested it with a thousand fearful attributes, and I 

 addressed it in accents to which terror and fury must have lent terri- 

 ble vehemence. It remained motionless in the bright moonlight, 

 impassive alike to my invocations and my ravings. My hopeless 



