Nor can my final punishment, my long imprisonment, my
everlasting disgrace, concern or profit you, beyond the interest
and advantage to be gleaned from the knowledge that I at least
had my deserts. But one thing I must set down, believe it who
will--one more thing only and I am done.
It was into a second-class cabin, on the starboard side, that I
was promptly thrust in irons, and the door locked upon me as
though I were another Raffles. Meanwhile a boat was lowered, and
the sea scoured to no purpose, as is doubtless on record
elsewhere. But either the setting sun, flashing over the waves,
must have blinded all eyes, or else mine were victims of a
strange illusion.
For the boat was back, the screw throbbing, and the prisoner
peering through his porthole across the sunlit waters that he
believed had closed for ever over his comrade's head. Suddenly
the sun sank behind the Island of Elba, the lane of dancing
sunlight was instantaneously quenched and swallowed in the
trackless waste, and in the middle distance, already miles
astern, either my sight deceived me or a black speck bobbed amid
the gray. The bugle had blown for dinner: it may well be that all
save myself had ceased to strain an eye. And now I lost what I
had found, now it rose, now sank, and now I gave it up utterly.
Yet anon it would rise again, a mere mote dancing in the dim gray
distance, drifting towards a purple island, beneath a fading
western sky, streaked with dead gold and cerise.
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