Chapter 6

Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks,
A thousand men that fishes gnawed upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scattered in the bottom of the sea.

_Richard III._

The flitting twilight was now on the wane, and the shades of evening were
gathering fast over the deep basin of the lake. The figure of Maso, as he
continued to pace his elevated platform, was drawn dark and distinct
against the southern sky, in which some of the last rays of the sun still
lingered, but objects on both shores were getting to be confounded with
the shapeless masses of the mountains. Here and there a pale star peeped
out, though most of the vault that stretched across the confined horizon
was shut in by dusky clouds. A streak of dull, unnatural light was seen in
the quarter which lay above the meadows of the Rhone, and nearly in a
direction with the peak of Mont Blanc, which, though not visible from this
portion of the Leman, was known to lie behind the ramparts of Savoy, like
a monarch of the hills entrenched in his citadel of rocks and ice.

The change, the lateness of the hour, and the unpleasant reflections left
by the short dialogue with Balthazar, produced a strong and common desire
to see the end of a navigation that was beginning to be irksome. Those
objects which had lately yielded so much and so pure a delight were now
getting to be black and menacing, and the very sublimity of the scale on
which Nature had here thrown together her elements was an additional
source of uncertainty and alarm. Those fairy-like, softly-delineated,
natural arabesques, which had so lately been dwelt upon with rapture were
now converted into dreary crags that seemed to beetle above the helpless
bark, giving unpleasant admonitions of the savage and inhospitable
properties of their iron-bound bases, which were known to prove
destructive to all who were cast against them while the elements were in
disorder.

These changes in the character of the scene, which in some respects began
to take the aspect of omens, were uneasily witnessed by all in the stern
of the bark, though the careless laughter, the rude joke, and the noisy
cries, which from time to time arose on the forecastle, sufficiently
showed that the careless spirits it held were still indulging in the
coarse enjoyments most suited to their habits. One individual, however,
was seen stealing from the crowd, and establishing himself on the pile of
freight, as if he had a mind more addicted to reflection, and less
disposed to unmeaning revelry, than most of those whom he had just
abandoned. This was the Westphalian student, who, wearied with amusements
that were below the level of his acquirements, and suddenly struck