It was a wonderfully beautiful sight, and yet sad, perhaps, from the
very excess of its beauty. The arising sun; the setting sun! There we
have the symbol and the type of humanity, and all things with which
humanity has to do. The symbol and the type, yes, and the earthly
beginning, and the end also. And on that morning this came home to me
with a peculiar force. The sun that rose to-day for us had set last
night for eighteen of our fellow-voyagers!--had set everlastingly for
eighteen whom we knew!
The dhow had gone down with them, they were tossing about among the
rocks and seaweed, so much human drift on the great ocean of Death! And
we four were saved. But one day a sunrise will come when we shall be
among those who are lost, and then others will watch those glorious
rays, and grow sad in the midst of beauty, and dream of Death in the
full glow of arising Life!
For this is the lot of man.
V
THE HEAD OF THE ETHIOPIAN
At length the heralds and forerunners of the royal sun had done their
work, and, searching out the shadows, had caused them to flee away.
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