JOHN RUSKIN 93 



like the lifting of its bosom by deep-drawn breath 

 after the torture of the storm. Between these two 

 ridges the fire of the sunset falls along the trough 

 of the sea, dyeing it with an awful but glorious 

 light, the intense and lurid splendour of which 

 burns like gold, and bathes like blood. Along this 

 fiery path and valley, the tossing waves, by which 

 the swell of the sea is restlessly divided, lift them- 

 selves in dark, indefinite, fantastic forms, each 

 casting a faint and ghastly shadow behind it along 

 the illumined foam. They do not rise everywhere, 

 but three or four together in wild groups, fitfully 

 and furiously, as the under strength of the swell 

 compels or permits them, leaving between them 

 treacherous spaces of level and whirling water, 

 now lighted with green and lamp-like fire, now 

 flashing back the gold of the declining sun, now 

 fearfully dyed from above with the undistinguish- 

 able images of the burning clouds, which fall upon 

 them in flakes of crimson and scarlet, and give to 

 the reckless waves the added motion of their own 

 fiery flying. Purple and blue, the lurid shadows 

 of the hollow breakers are cast upon the mist of 

 night, which gathers cold and low, advancing like 

 the shadow of death upon the guilty ship as it 

 labours amidst the lightning of the sea, its thin 

 masts written upon the sky in lines of blood, 

 girded with condemnation in tliat fearful hue 

 which signs the sky with horror, and mixes its 



