The sand-hills rising
sheer from the shore, fifty, sixty, or a hundred feet in height,
bordered their road on the right. To avoid the soft dry sand of their
base the pony often trotted in the shallow flow of the foam, which even
yet now and then crept over all the damp beach to the high-water mark.
The wind was like spur and lash; the horse fled before it. Eyes and ears
grew accustomed even to the threatening of the sea-monsters. The sun of
the November afternoon sank nearer and nearer the level of sand and
foam; they could not see the ocean beyond the foam. When it grew large
and ruddy in the level atmosphere, and some flakes of red, red gold
appeared round it, lying where the edge of the sea must be, like the
Islands of the Blessed, when the crests of the breakers near and far
began to be touched with a fiery glow, when the soft dun brown of the
sand-hills turned to gold, Caius, overcome with having walked and eaten
much, and drunk deeply of the wine of the wild salt wind, fell into a
heavy dreamless slumber, lying outstretched upon his bed of straw.
CHAPTER IV.
WHERE THE DEVIL LIVED.
Caius did not know how long he slept. He woke with a sudden start and a
presentiment of evil. It was quite dark, as black as starlight night
could be; for the foam of the waves hardly glimmered to sight, except
here and there where some phosphorescent jelly was tossed among them
like a blue death-light.
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