Below, the black tossing sea was churned into phosphorescent spray, as
the steamer drove onwards into the night.
Was it he indeed--George Richardson? He doubted it. The world of tape
measures and calico counters seemed so far away; the interior of his
quondam lodgings in a by-street of Islington, so unfamiliar and
impossible. He felt himself swallowed up in this new and bewildering
existence, of which he was so insignificant an atom, the existence
where tragedy reared her gloomy head, and the shadows of great things
loomed around him. Down there in the cold restless waste of black
waters--what was it that he saw? The sweat broke out upon his
forehead, the blood seemed turned to ice in his veins. He knew very
well that his fancy mocked him, that it was not indeed a man's white
face gleaming on the crest of the waves. But none the less he was
terrified.
Mr. Richardson was certainly nervous. Not all the brandy he had
drunk--and he had never drunk half as much before in his
life--afforded him the least protection from these ghastly fancies.
The step of a sailor on the deck made him shiver; the thought of his
empty state room was a horror. He tried to think of the woman at whose
bidding he had left behind him Islington and the things that belonged
to Islington! He tried to recall her soft suggestive whispers, the
glances which promised more even than her spoken words, all the
perfume and mystery of her wonderful presence.
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