A melancholy smile passed over his face as he thought of what seemed to him the utter futility of that promise.
Now, as the weeks passed, his whole mode of life affected both mind and body. Yet, if it be the highest state of man for the soul to live by itself, as Socrates used to teach, and sever itself from bodily association, Brandon surely had attained, without knowing it, a most exalted stage of existence. Perhaps it was the period of purification and preparation for future work.
The weather varied incessantly, calms and storms alternating; sometimes all the sea lying dull, listless, and glassy under the burning sky; at other times both sea and sky convulsed with the war of elements.
At last there came one storm so tremendous that it exceeded all that Brandon had ever seen any where.
The wind gathered itself up from the south-east, and for a whole day the forces of the tempest collected themselves, till at last they burst in fury upon the island. In sustained violence and in the frenzy of its assault it far surpassed that first storm. Before sundown the storm was at its height, and, though yet day, the clouds were so dense and so black that it became like night. Night came on, and the storm, and roar, and darkness increased steadily every hour. So intense was the darkness that the hand, when held close by the face, could not be distinguished. So restless was the force of the wind that Brandon, on looking out to sea, had to cling to the rock to prevent himself from being blown away. A dense rain of spray streamed through the air, and the surf, rolling up, flung its crest all across the island. Brandon could hear beneath him, amidst some of the pauses of the storm, the hissing and bubbling of foaming waters, as though the whole island, submerged by the waves, was slowly settling down into the depths of the ocean.
Brandon's place of shelter was sufficiently elevated to be out of the reach of the waves that might rush upon the land, and on the lee-side of the rock, so that he was sufficiently protected. Sand, which he had carried up, formed his bed. In this place, which was more like the lair of a wild beast than the abode of a human being, he had to live. Many wakeful nights he had passed there, but never had he known such a night as this.
There was a frenzy about this hurricane that would have been inconceivable if he had not witnessed it. His senses, refined and rendered acute by long vigils and slender diet, seemed to detect audible words in the voice of the storm. Looking out through the gloom his sight seemed to discern shapes flitting by like lightning, as though the fabled spirits of the storm had gathered here.
It needed all the robust courage of his strong nature to sustain himself in the presence of the wild fancies that now came rushing and thronging before his mind. The words of his father sounded in his ears; he thought he heard them spoken from the air; he thought he saw an aged spectral face, wan with suffering and grief, in front of his cave. He covered his eyes with his hands, and sought to reason down his superstitious feeling. In vain. Words rang in his ears, muffled words, as though muttered in the storm, and his mind, which had brooded so long over his father's letter, now gave shape to the noise of winds and waves.
"—In the crisis of your fate I will be near."
"I shall go mad!" cried Brandon, aloud, and he started to his feet.
But the storm went on with its fury, and still his eyes saw shapes, and his ears heard fantastic sounds. So the night passed until at last the storm had exhausted itself. Then Brandon sank down and slept far on into the day.
When he awaked again the storm had subsided. The sea was still boisterous, and a fresh breeze blew which he inhaled with pleasure. After obtaining some shell-fish, and satisfying his appetite, he went to the summit of the rock for water, and then stood looking out at sea.
His eye swept the whole circuit of the horizon without seeing any thing, until at length he turned to look in a westwardly direction where the island spread out before him. Here an amazing sight met his eyes.
The mound at the other end had become completely and marvelously changed. On the previous day it had preserved its usual shape, but now it was no longer smoothly rounded. On the contrary it was irregular, the northern end being still a sort of hillock, but the middle and southern end was flat on the surface and dark in color. From the distance at which he stood it looked like a rock, around which the sand had accumulated, but which had been uncovered by the violent storm of the preceding night.
At that distance it appeared like a rock, but there was something in its shape and in its position which made it look like a ship which had been cast ashore. The idea was a startling one, and he at once dismissed it as absurd. But the more he looked the closer the resemblance grew until at last, unable to endure this suspense, he hurried off in that direction.
During all the time that he had been on the island he had never been close to the mound. He had remained for the most part in the neighborhood of the rock, and had never thought that a barren sand hillock was worthy of a visit. But now it appeared a very different object in his eyes.
He walked on over half the intervening distance, and now the resemblance instead of fading out, as he anticipated, grew more close. It was still too far to be seen very distinctly: but there, even from that distance, he saw the unmistakable outline of a ship's hull.
There was now scarcely any doubt about this. There it lay. Every step only made it more visible. He walked more quickly onward, filled with wonder, and marveling by what strange chance this vessel could have reached its present position.
There it lay. It could not by any possibility have been cast ashore on the preceding night. The mightiest billows that ever rose from ocean could never have lifted a ship so far upon the shore. To him it was certain that it must have been there for a long time, and that the sand had been heaped around it by successive storms.
As he walked nearer he regarded more closely the formation of this western end. He saw the low northern point, and then the cove where he had escaped from the sea. He noticed that the southern point where the mound was appeared to be a sort of peninsula, and the theory suggested itself to him by which he could account for this wonder. This ship, he saw, must have been wrecked at some time long before upon this island. As the shore was shallow it had run aground and stuck fast in the sand. But successive storms had continued to beat upon it until the moving sands which the waters were constantly driving about had gathered all around it higher and higher. At last, in the course of time, a vast accumulation had gathered about this obstacle till a new bank had been formed and joined to the island; and the winds had lent their aid, heaping up the loose sand on high till all the ship was covered. But last night's storm had to some extent undone the work, and now the wreck was once more exposed.
Brandon was happy in his conjecture and right in his theory. All who know any thing about the construction and nature of sand islands such as this are aware that the winds and waters work perpetual changes. The best known example of this is the far-famed Sable Island, which lies off the coast of Nova Scotia, in the direct track of vessels crossing the Atlantic between England and the United States. Here there is repeated on a far larger scale the work which Brandon saw on Coffin Island. Sable Island is twenty miles long and about one in width—the crest of a vast heap of sand which rises out of the ocean's bed. Here the wildest storms in the world rage uncontrolled, and the keepers of the light-house have but little shelter. Not long ago an enormous flag-staff was torn from out its place and hurled away into the sea. In fierce storms the spray drives all across, and it is impossible to venture out. But most of all, Sable Island is famous for the melancholy wrecks that have taken place there. Often vessels that have the bad fortune to run aground are broken up, but sometimes the sand gathers about them and covers them up. There are numerous mounds here which are known to conceal wrecked ships. Some of these have been opened, and the wreck beneath has been brought to view. Sometimes also after a severe gale these sandy mounds are torn away and the buried vessels are exposed.
Far away in Australia Brandon had heard of Sable Island from different sea captains who had been in the Atlantic trade. The stories which these men had to tell were all largely tinged with the supernatural.