Page:The Ball and the Cross.djvu/205

ing, burnishing it all like gold, and every bird that rose with that sunrise caught a light like a star upon it like the dove of the Holy Spirit. Imaginative life had never so much crowded upon MacIan. He felt that he could write whole books about the feelings of a single bird. He felt that for two centuries he would not tire of being a rabbit. He was in the Palace of Life, of which the very tapestries and curtains were alive. Then he recovered himself, and remembered his affairs. Both men saluted, and iron rang upon iron. It was exactly at the same moment that he realised that his enemy’s left ankle was encircled with a ring of salt water that had crept up to his feet.

“What is the matter?” said Turnbull, stopping an instant, for he had grown used to every movement of his extraordinary fellow-traveller’s face.

MacIan glanced again at that silver anklet of sea water and then looked beyond at the next promontory round which a deep sea was boiling and leaping. Then he turned and looked back and saw heavy foam being shaken up to heaven about the base of Cragness Point.

“The sea has cut us off,” he said, curtly.

“I have noticed it,” said Turnbull with equal