It was upon this scene that Caius, wretched and sleepless, looked at
early dawn. He had come out of his house and climbed the nearest knoll
from which the bay could be seen, for his house and those near it looked
on the open western sea. When he reached this knoll he found that O'Shea
was there before him, examining the movements of the ship with his glass
in the gray cold of the shivering morning. The two men stood together
and held no communication.
Pretty soon O'Shea went hastily home again. Caius stood still to see the
sun rise clear and golden. There were no clouds, no vapours, to catch
its reflections and make a wondrous spectacle of its appearing. The blue
horizon slowly dipped until the whole yellow disc beamed above it; ice
and water glistened pleasantly; on the hills of all the sister isles
there was sunshine and shade; and round about him, in the hilly field,
each rock and bush cast a long shadow. Between them the sun struck the
grass with such level rays that the very blades and clumps of blades
cast their shadows also.
Caius had remained to watch if the breeze would strengthen with the
sun's uprising, and he prayed the forces of heat and cold, and all
things that preside over the currents of air, that it might not
strengthen but languish and die.
What difference did it make, a few hours more or less? No difference, he
knew, and yet all the fresh energy the new day brought him went forth in
this desire that Josephine might have a few hours longer respite before
she began the long weary course of life that stretched before her.
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