The silence and shadow both fell together; for hours sea and shore were
impenetrable. Yet at times the air was softly moved and troubled, the
surrounding gloom faintly lightened as with a misty dawn, and then was
dark again; or drowsy, far-off cries and confused noises seemed to grow
out of the silence, and, when they had attracted the weary ear, sank
away as in a mocking dream, and showed themselves unreal. Nebulous
gatherings in the fog seemed to indicate stationary objects that, even
as one gazed, moved away; the recurring lap and ripple on the shingle
sometimes took upon itself the semblance of faint articulate laughter
or spoken words. But towards morning a certain monotonous grating on the
sand, that had for many minutes alternately cheated and piqued the ear,
asserted itself more strongly, and a moving, vacillating shadow in the
gloom became an opaque object on the shore.
With the first rays of the morning light the fog lifted. As the undraped
hills one by one bared their cold bosoms to the sun, the long line of
coast struggled back to life again.
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