MADAME MIDAS

Fergus Hume






PROLOGUE

CAST UP BY THE SEA


A wild bleak-looking coast, with huge water-worn promontories
jutting out into the sea, daring the tempestuous fury of the waves,
which dashed furiously in sheets of seething foam against the iron
rocks. Two of these headlands ran out for a considerable distance,
and at the base of each, ragged cruel-looking rocks stretched still
further out into the ocean until they entirely disappeared beneath
the heaving waste of waters, and only the sudden line of white foam
every now and then streaking the dark green waves betrayed their
treacherous presence to the idle eye. Between these two headlands
there was about half a mile of yellow sandy beach on which the waves
rolled with a dull roar, fringing the wet sands with many coloured
wreaths of sea-weed and delicate shells. At the back the cliffs rose
in a kind of semi-circle, black and precipitous, to the height of
about a hundred feet, and flocks of white seagulls who had their
nests therein were constantly circling round, or flying seaward with
steadily expanded wings and discordant cries. At the top of these