The sun
was about setting; the tide was low, and all the quicksands
uncovered; and I was moving along, lost in unpleasant thought, when
I was suddenly thunderstruck to perceive the prints of human feet.
They ran parallel to my own course, but low down upon the beach
instead of along the border of the turf; and, when I examined them,
I saw at once, by the size and coarseness of the impression, that
it was a stranger to me and to those in the pavilion who had
recently passed that way. Not only so; but from the recklessness
of the course which he had followed, steering near to the most
formidable portions of the sand, he was as evidently a stranger to
the country and to the ill-repute of Graden beach.
Step by step I followed the prints; until, a quarter of a mile
farther, I beheld them die away into the south-eastern boundary of
Graden Floe. There, whoever he was, the miserable man had
perished. One or two gulls, who had, perhaps, seen him disappear,
wheeled over his sepulchre with their usual melancholy piping. The
sun had broken through the clouds by a last effort, and coloured
the wide level of quicksands with a dusky purple. I stood for some
time gazing at the spot, chilled and disheartened by my own
reflections, and with a strong and commanding consciousness of
death. I remember wondering how long the tragedy had taken, and
whether his screams had been audible at the pavilion.
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