So we clung and
listened, and while we were stretched out upon the rock a thing happened
which was so curious and suggestive in itself, though doubtless a mere
coincidence, that, if anything, it added to, rather than deducted from,
the burden on our nerves.
It will be remembered that when Ayesha was standing on the spur, before
we crossed to the stone, the wind tore her cloak from her, and whirled
it away into the darkness of the gulf, we could not see whither. Well--I
hardly like to tell the story; it is so strange. As we lay there upon
the rocking-stone, this very cloak came floating out of the black space,
like a memory from the dead, and fell on Leo--so that it covered him
nearly from head to foot. We could not at first make out what it was,
but soon discovered by its feel, and then poor Leo, for the first time,
gave way, and I heard him sobbing there upon the stone. No doubt the
cloak had been caught upon some pinnacle of the cliff, and was thence
blown hither by a chance gust; but still, it was a most curious and
touching incident.
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