"Amen!" said Amyas."Now set me where I can rest among the rocks without fear of falling--for life is sweet still, even without eyes, friends--and leave me to myself awhile."It was no easy matter to find a safe place; for from the foot of the crag the heathery turf slopes down all but upright, on one side to a cliff which overhangs a shoreless cove of deep dark sea, and on the other to an abyss even more hideous, where the solid rock has sunk away, and opened inland in the hillside a smooth-walled pit, some sixty feet square and some hundred and fifty in depth, aptly known then as now, as the Devil's-limekiln; the mouth of which, as old wives say, was once closed by the Shutter-rock itself, till the fiend in malice hurled it into the sea, to be a pest to mariners.A narrow and untrodden cavern at the bottom connects it with the outer sea; they could even then hear the mysterious thunder and gurgle of the surge in the subterranean adit, as it rolled huge boulders to and fro in darkness, and forced before it gusts of pent-up air.It was a spot to curdle weak blood, and to make weak heads reel: but all the fitter on that account for Amyas and his fancy.
"You can sit here as in an arm-chair," said Cary, helping him down to one of those square natural seats so common in the granite tors.
"Good; now turn my face to the Shutter.Be sure and exact.So.
Do I face it full?"
"Full," said Cary.
"Then I need no eyes wherewith to see what is before me," said he, with a sad smile."I know every stone and every headland, and every wave too, I may say, far beyond aught that eye can reach.
Now go, and leave me alone with God and with the dead!"They retired a little space and watched him.He never stirred for many minutes; then leaned his elbows on his knees, and his head upon his hands, and so was still again.He remained so long thus, that the pair became anxious, and went towards him.He was asleep, and breathing quick and heavily.
"He will take a fever," said Brimblecombe, "if he sleeps much longer with his head down in the sunshine.""We must wake him gently if we wake him at all." And Cary moved forward to him.
As he did so, Amyas lifted his head, and turning it to right and left, felt round him with his sightless eyes.
"You have been asleep, Amyas."
"Have I? I have not slept back my eyes, then.Take up this great useless carcase of mine, and lead me home.I shall buy me a dog when I get to Burrough, I think, and make him tow me in a string, eh? So! Give me your hand.Now march!"His guides heard with surprise this new cheerfulness.
