Betwixt  the  extremities,  or  capes,  of  these  pro-
jecting headlands,  there  rolled,  on  the  day  when
Mertoun  visited  the  scene,  a  deep  and  dense  aggrega-
tion of  clouds,  through  which  no  human  eye  could
penetrate,  and  which,  bounding  the  vision,  and  ex-
cluding all  view  of  the  distant  ocean,  rendered  it  no
unapt  representation  of  the  sea  in  the  Vision  of
Mirza,  whose  extent  was  concealed  by  vapours,  and
clouds,  and  storms.  The  ground  rising  steeply  from
the  sea-beach,  permitting  no  view  into  the  interior
of  the  country,  appeared  a  scene  of  irretrievable  bar-
renness, where  scrubby  and  stunted  heath,  inter-
mixed with  the  long  bent,  or  coarse  grass,  which
first  covers  sandy  soils,  were  the  only  vegetables
that  could  be  seen.  Upon  a  natural  elevation,  which
rose  above  the  beach  in  the  very  bottom  of  the  bay,


78  THE  PIRATE.
and  receded  a  little  from  the  sea,  so  as  to  be  with-
out reach  of  the  waves,  arose  the  half -buried  ruin
which  we  have  already  described,  surrounded  by  a
wasted,  half-ruinous,  and  mouldering  wall,  which,
breached  in  several  places,  served  still  to  divide
the  precincts  of  the  cemetery.  The  mariners  who
were  driven  by  accident  into  this  solitary  bay,  pre-
tended that  the  church  was  occasionally  observed  to
be  full  of  lights,  and,  from  that  circumstance,  were
used  to  prophesy  shipwrecks  and  deaths  by  sea.
As  Mertoun  approached  near  to  the  chapel,  he
adopted,  insensibly,  and  perhaps  without  much  pre-
meditation, measures  to  avoid  being  himself  seen,
until  he  came  close  under  the  walls  of  the  burial-
ground,  which  he  approached,  as  it  chanced,  on  that
side  where  the  sand  was  blowing  from  the  graves,
in  the  manner  we  have  described.
