That night a barge put out, and an officer boarded us, subjecting us to a most rigid scrutiny. Since the great treason a savage suspicion had succeeded routine vigilance; the very guns among the rocks seemed alive, alert, listening, black jaws parted to launch a thunderous warning. A guard was placed on deck; we were not allowed to send a boat ashore; not even permitted to communicate with the fishing-smack and rowboats that hovered around us, curious as gulls around a floating plank.
And all this time--from the very instant of departure, through three days and a night of screaming winds and cataracts of water, through the delays where we rode at anchor below the Chain and Dobbs Ferry, under a vertical sun that started the pitch in every seam--Elsin Grey, radiant, transfigured, drenched to the skin, faced storm and calm in an ecstasy of reckless happiness.
Wild winds from the north, shouting among the mountains, winds of the forests, that tore the cries of exultation from our lips and scattered sound into space, winds of my own northland that poured through our veins, cleansing us of sordid care and sad regret and doubt, these were the sorcerers that changed us back to children while the dull roaring of their incantations filled the world. We two alone on earth, and the vast, veiled world spread round, outstretching to the limits of eternity, all ours to conquer, ours for our pleasure, ours to reign in till the moon cracked and the stars faded, and the sun went down forever and a day, and all was chaos save for the blazing trail of blessed souls, soaring to glory through the majesty of endless night.
In the sunlit calms, riding at our moorings, much we discussed eternity and creation. Doctrines once terrible seemed now harmless and without menace, dogmas dissolved into thinnest air, blown to the nothingness from whence they came; for, strangely, all teachings and creeds and laws of faith narrowed to the oldest of precepts; and, ponder and question as we might, citing prophet and saint and holy men inspired, all came to the same at last, expressed in that cardinal precept so safe in its simplicity--the one law embodied in one word governing heaven and commanding earth.
"Aye," said she, "but how interpret it? For a misstep means certain damnation, Carus. Once when I spelled out 'Love' for you, I stumbled and should have fallen had you not held me up."
"You held me up, sweetheart! I was closer to the brink than you."
She looked thoughtfully at the fortress; the shore was so near that, through the calm darkness, we could hear the sentinels calling from post to post and the ripple of the Hudson at the base of the rocks.