When we arrived at Dover, after a fatiguing day's journey, we all required

rest and sleep; but the scene acting around us soon drove away such ideas.

We were drawn, along with the greater part of our companions, to the edge

of the cliff, there to listen to and make a thousand conjectures. A fog

narrowed our horizon to about a quarter of a mile, and the misty veil, cold

and dense, enveloped sky and sea in equal obscurity. What added to our

inquietude was the circumstance that two-thirds of our original number were

now waiting for us in Paris, and clinging, as we now did most painfully, to

any addition to our melancholy remnant, this division, with the tameless

impassable ocean between, struck us with affright. At length, after

loitering for several hours on the cliff, we retired to Dover Castle, whose

roof sheltered all who breathed the English air, and sought the sleep

necessary to restore strength and courage to our worn frames and languid

spirits.

Early in the morning Adrian brought me the welcome intelligence that the

wind had changed: it had been south-west; it was now north-east. The sky

was stripped bare of clouds by the increasing gale, while the tide at its

ebb seceded entirely from the town. The change of wind rather increased the

fury of the sea, but it altered its late dusky hue to a bright green; and

in spite of its unmitigated clamour, its more cheerful appearance instilled

hope and pleasure. All day we watched the ranging of the mountainous waves,

and towards sunset a desire to decypher the promise for the morrow at its

setting, made us all gather with one accord on the edge of the cliff. When

the mighty luminary approached within a few degrees of the tempest-tossed

horizon, suddenly, a wonder! three other suns, alike burning and brilliant,

486

The Last Man