Page 528 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

ers of the Southern Sea.
The narrow strip of rock at the base of the cliff was as
flat as a table. Here and there were enormous hollows like
pans, which the retreating tide had left full of clear, still wa-
ter. The crannies of the rock were inhabited by small white
crabs, and John Rex found to his delight that there was on
this little shelf abundance of mussels, which, though lean
and acrid, were sufficiently grateful to his famished stom-
ach. Attached to the flat surfaces of the numerous stones,
moreover, were coarse limpets. These, however, John Rex
found too salt to be palatable, and was compelled to reject
them. A larger variety, however, having a succulent body
as thick as a man’s thumb, contained in long razor-shaped
shells, were in some degree free from this objection, and he
soon collected the materials for a meal. Having eaten and
sunned himself, he began to examine the enormous rock,
to the base of which he had so strangely penetrated. Rugged
and worn, it raised its huge breast against wind and wave,
secure upon a broad pedestal, which probably extended as
far beneath the sea as the massive column itself rose above
it. Rising thus, with its shaggy drapery of seaweed clinging
about its knees, it seemed to be a motionless but sentient
being—some monster of the deep, a Titan of the ocean con-
demned ever to front in silence the fury of that illimitable
and rarely-travelled sea. Yet—silent and motionless as he
was—the hoary ancient gave hint of the mysteries of his re-
venge. Standing upon the broad and sea-girt platform where
surely no human foot but his had ever stood in life, the con-
vict saw, many feet above him, pitched into a cavity of the