“Die, then!” she yelled; “and may a thousand curses weigh down your souls!”
“Die, then!” she yelled; “and may a thousand curses weigh down your souls!”
“Die, then!” she yelled; “and may a thousand curses weigh down your souls!”
It was the wildest swim that ever a mortal took. So fiercely did we spin and fly that heaven and earth seemed mixed together, and the white clouds overhead were not whiter than the sheets of foam that ran down seaward with us. I am a good swimmer, but who could make the bank in such a caldron of angry waters? and now Numidea was on top, and now I. It went to my heart to hear the poor little Christian gasp out on “Good St. Christopher!” and to feel the flutter of her breast against my leather jerkin, and then presently I did not feel it at all. Many an island of wreckage passed us, but none that I could lay hold on, until presently a mighty log came foaming down upon us, laboring through that torrent surf like a full-sailed ship. As it passed I threw an arm over a strong root, and thus, for an hour, behind that black midnight javelin we flew downward, I knew not whither. Then it presently left the strong stream, and towing me toward a soft alluvial beach, just as dawn was breaking in the east, deposited me there, and slowly disappeared again into the void.
This is all I know of Roman Britain; this is the end of the chapter.
As I reeled ashore with my burden some friendly fisherfolk came forward to help, but I saw them not. Numidea was dead! my poor little slave-girl—the one speck of virtue in that tyrant world—and I bent over her, and shut her kindly eyes, and spread on the sand her long wet braids, and smoothed the modest white gown she was so careful of, with a heart that was heavier than it ever felt yet in storm or battle!
Then all my grief and exertions came upon me in a flood, and the last thing I remember was stooping down in the morning starlight to kiss the fair little maid upon that pallid face that looked so wan and strange amid the wild-spread tangles of her twisted hair.