Those
were his first tears--this was his last look. In two minutes by the
watch he was blind as a mole!
There is but little more to tell. The giant ate himself to death; the
castle mouldered and crumbled into pig-pens; empires rose and fell;
kings ascended their thrones, and got down again; mountains grew grey,
and rivers bald-headed; suits in chancery were brought and decided,
and those from the tailor were paid for; the ages came, like maiden
aunts, uninvited, and lingered till they became a bore--and still
Simprella, with the magician's curse upon her, conducted her sightless
guide through the interminable wilderness!
To all others the labyrinth had yielded up its clue. The hunter
threaded its maze; the woodman plunged confidently into its innermost
depths; the peasant child gathered ferns unscared in its sunless
dells. But often the child abandoned his botany in terror, the woodman
bolted for home, and the hunter's heart went down into his boots, at
the sight of a fair young spectre leading a blind phantom through the
silent glades. I saw them there in 1860, while I was gunning. I shot
them.
SEAFARING.
My envious rivals have always sought to cast discredit upon the
following tale, by affirming that mere unadorned truth does not
constitute a work of literary merit.
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