"A vision came in on the moon-beam."
Henry, left on the beach, with his chest beside him, slept heavily for
some hours. When he awoke it was night. He lay on the shingles. He
felt the fresh breath of the breeze, as, from time to time, it lifted
the hair on his fevered temples. He heard the dash of each billow as
it struck the shore, and the rattle of the loose stones, as each wave
retired again, down the extended sloping bank of smooth pebbles, on
which his head was pillowed. Thinking it all a dream, he remained for
some moments motionless; when, becoming more clearly awake, he sat up,
and passed his hand across his eyes, as it were to rectify their vision.
The moon had risen over the expanse of waters before him. He gazed on
the sparkling of her myriad beams, mingling in fairy dance o'er all the
solitary waste, for not a sail or mast appeared. He looked on his right
hand, and on his left; here too all was loneliness!
His ideas still bewildered, he rested his eyes on the pillar of light,
which the bright orb exactly opposite to him, and still near the
horizon, had flung across the whole ocean, planting its base at his
very feet. On a sudden this dazzling object became obscured, and he
beheld, standing over him, and intercepting its refulgence, the same
remarkable figure which, it may be remembered, Mr. Jackson had seen
walking with him, about eight years since, in the shrubbery at Lodore
House.