Tossed about as she
was, rudderless and solitary, there was something almost miraculous in
the way she had weathered a storm in which many a well-guided ship must
inevitably have gone down. The purple pall with its heavy fringe of
gold, that shrouded the coffin she carried, was drenched through and
through by the sea, and the flowers on the deck were beaten and drowned
in the salt spray that dashed over them.
But amid all the ruined blossoms of earth, by the side of the dead, and
full-fronted to the tempest, stood one living man, for whom life had no
charm, and death no terror--the King! What had been reported of him was
true--he had resigned his Throne and left his kingdom for the sake of
adventuring forth on this great voyage of Discovery,--this swift and
stormy sail with Lotys to the Land of the Unknown! Whether it was a
madness, or a sick dream that fevered his blood, he knew not--but once
the woman he loved was dead, every hope, every ambition in him died
too--and he felt himself to be a mere corpse of clay, unwillingly
dragged about by a passionate soul that longed, and strove, and fought
in its shell for larger freedom. All his life, so to speak, save for
the last few months, he had been a prisoner;--he had never, as he had
himself declared, known the sweetness of liberty;--but for the sake of
Lotys,--had she lived,--he would have been content to still wear the
chains of monarchy, and would have endeavoured to accomplish such good
as he might, and make such reforms as could possibly benefit his
country.
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