CHAPTER IX
WEDDED TO THE SEA
But he never returned. One August night, out off gloomy Iceland,
mingled with the furious clamour of the sea, his wedding with the sea
was performed. It had been his nurse; it had rocked him in his
babyhood, and had afterward made him big and strong; then, in his
superb manhood, it had taken him back again for itself alone.
Profoundest mystery had surrounded this unhallowed union. While it
went on, dark curtains hung pall-like over it as if to conceal the
ceremony, and the ghoul howled in an awful deafening voice to stifle
his cries. He, thinking of Gaud, his sole, darling wife, had battled
with giant strength against this deathly rival, until he at last
surrendered, with a deep death-cry like the roar of a dying bull,
through a mouth already filled with water; and his arms were stretched
apart and stiffened for ever.
All those he had invited in days of old were present at his wedding.
All except Sylvestre, who had gone to sleep in the enchanted gardens
far, far away, at the other side of the earth.
