The wind, which had been pleasant in the noontide, had fallen completely, and not a leaf was stirring.

I could see across the creek and note the hard line where the battlements of the Castle cut the sky, and where the keep towered above the line of black rock, which in the shadow of the land made an ebon frame for the picture.

When I had seen the same view on former occasions, the line where the rock rose from the sea was a fringe of white foam.

But then, in the daylight, the sea was sapphire blue; now it was an expanse of dark blue--so dark as to seem almost black.

It had not even the relief of waves or ripples--simply a dark, cold, lifeless expanse, with no gleam of light anywhere, of lighthouse or ship; neither was there any special sound to be heard that one could distinguish--nothing but the distant hum of the myriad voices of the dark mingling in one ceaseless inarticulate sound.