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Seizing another he dabbed again; the quill stood the shock; the small clerk ventured a sigh of relief and laid aside the inky napkin which he had pulled out of his desk expecting an upset, and prepared for the worst. A note was dashed off in two minutes, signed, sealed, addressed, in half a minute, and Mr Sudberry leaped off his stool.
Within reach of the youth's hand was one who lay with yellow breast and shoulders bare to the cold drafts. One arm hung over the side of the cot, and the fingers lay full length upon the wet cement floor of the room. Beneath the inky brows could be seen the eyes of the man exposed by the partly opened lids.
And the Black Holster, revolver in hand, flashed his torch into the inky stillness of the chamber. Behind him stood two plantons white with fear; their trembling hands clutching revolvers, the barrels of which shook ludicrously. "C'est moi, plan-ton!"
It was the steady droning of cascading waters falling in a mighty tide. It suggested the plunge into the darkness of an abyss, or even the lesser immensity of surging rapids in the course of a mountain river. Steadily the western breeze increased. It lost its patchiness and settled to a pleasant, warming drift. Slowly the inky darkness rolled away.
I have heard it said that, deep down in coal mines, certain of the workers have seen wondrous sights; that when they have been alone in a drift, they have heard the blowing of the wind and the rustling of leaves, and suddenly found themselves penned in on all sides by the naked trunks of enormous primitive trees, lepidodendrons, sigillarias, ferns, and other plants, that have shone out with phosphorescent grandeur amid the inky blackness of the subterranean ether.
The inky blackness added supernatural horror; the wrath of the Almighty seemed upon them; and His hand to drop the black sky down on them for their funeral pall. Surely Noah from his ark saw nothing more terrible. What is that? Close on the lee bow: chose: the flash of a gun, another; another; another.
On the black sky the stars, coming out, gleamed over an inky sea that, speckled with foam, flashed back at them the evanescent and pale light of a dazzling whiteness born from the black turmoil of the waves.
She wanted to question her companions as to the accuracy of this definition, but before she had time to frame a sentence the real cloud-burst came, with a splitting crack of thunder; then the lightning flashed out its message in the short-hand of the storm, across the inky blackness, and the water fell as if the ocean had been inverted.
There was very little light; for the night had grown darker as it wore on, and the few stars that had glimmered faintly had hid their diminished heads behind the piles of inky clouds. Still, there was a sort of faint phosphorescent light whitening the gloom, and by it Sir Norman's keen bright eyes discovered that he wore a long dark cloak and slouched hat.
It was through the transparent darkness of a cloudless April morning, a little before sunrise, that he saw again the mountains of his native land, far lofty sharpening sierras, towering violet-black out of the circle of an inky sea. Behind the steamer which was bearing him back from exile the horizon was slowly filling with rosy flame.
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