Page:The Enchanted Knights; or The Chronicle of the Three Sisters.djvu/84

4 ever feeling the oppression of ennui; and the moments he did not bestow upon his loving consort he generally devoted to fishing and hunting, his favourite sports.

Once having hunted on the most northern point of his dominions, on a cape running far into the sea, he reposed with his suite during the heat of the day in the shadow of an oak; luxuriating at once in the splendid sight and refreshing breeze of the billowy ocean.

Suddenly awful Alus spread his rustling wings, the face of the water grew wrinkled as an angry brow, gigantic billows stormed the rocks as though an hostile castle, and fell back in boiling rage a powerless and bubbling foam. In the midst of the battling element a ship, sport of the winds which mocked the toiling pilot, was seen dancing upon the wave. It was driven towards the cliffs in sight of which it was foundered upon a hidden rock. To behold from a place of safety the contention of human daring against two powerful and deceitful elements, is an awful sight, but as soon as victory is decided in favour of the stronger, the better feelings of man revolt at the unequal contest, and all his sympathies are enlisted in favour of the weaker, to whom he offers