Page:Moonfleet - John Meade Falkner.pdf/261

 iron face, where a good ship is shattered at a blow, and death comes like a thunder-clap? Or was it shelving sand, where there is stranding, and the pound, pound, pound of the waves for hours, before she goes to pieces and all is over?

We were in a bay, for there was the long white crescent of surf reaching far away on either side, till it was lost in the dusk, and the brig helpless in the midst of it. Elzevir had hold of my arm, and gripped it hard as he looked to larboard. I followed his eyes, and where one horn of the white crescent faded into the mist, caught a dark shadow in the air, and knew it was high land looming behind. And then the murk and driving rain lifted ever so little, and as it were only for that purpose; and we saw a misty bluff slope down into the sea, like the long head of a basking alligator poised upon the water, and stared into each other's eyes, and cried together, "The Snout!"

It had vanished almost before it was seen, and yet we knew there was no mistake; it was the Snout that was there looming behind the moving rack, and we were in Moonfleet Bay. Oh, what a rush of thought then came, dazing me with its sweet bitterness, to think that after all these weary years of prison and exile we had come back to Moonfleet! We were so near to all we loved, so near—only a mile of broken water—and yet so far, for death lay between, and we had come back to Moonfleet to die. There was a change came over Elzevir's features when he saw the Snout; his face had lost its sadness and wore a look of sober happiness. He put his mouth close to my ear, and said: "There is some strange leading hand has brought us home at last,