Actuated by an almost maternal impulse, Rachel divested herself of her bit of shawl and laid it over the shoulders of the sleeping boy. Then she resumed the watch, and with every hour ticked forth by the clock on the wall, her sense of responsibility increased till the flame in the lantern was duplicated by another flame alight in a little human heart.
It was toward daylight when she stepped out on the balcony which encircled the tower just below the lantern. But the world she looked out upon was no longer the world with which she was familiar. At that hour a mysterious, quiet influence was abroad. Far below to the northward she descried her grandfather's house, grey, closed, silent; and she saw the silver loop of the bay. Inland the pine trees were arranged in dark, meditative groups, and the rocks, no longer formidable, in that wan half-light appeared like cattle that had trooped down to the water to drink. Here and there, perched on the loftiest crags, were the sentinel crows. These, solitary, motionless, accentuated the universal air of waiting.
All at once she held her breath. Across the clear blue of the sky lay, like lines of smoke, two or three filmy clouds. From a light pink these were turning to rose. Gradually the stars, one by one, paled--went out. Then an abrupt happening. A curve of crimson appeared above the horizon; this widened until it resembled an eye; then a full glowing countenance swung clear of the ocean and rays sprang from it. The whole sky began to blush. The ocean, a moment before a dull grey, flushed, and tiny ripples covered its surface; ships, hitherto invisible, appeared on its gently agitated bosom. And this infusion of vitality reached inland, quivering to gold in the tree-tops, trembling to crimson in the coarse grass, invading with radiance the most secret recess of the tiniest shell on the sand. The whole shore was illumined with the lavender and gold of the dawn; and simultaneously, from every quarter, rose the crows with their raucous _caw caw_ in greeting to the oncoming day.
Suddenly through the weary frame of the child surged tides of exultation; it was as if, after the dreary watch, the sun rose in her. She stretched out her arms, and, for an instant, the sun and the child stared at each other. Then its fierce glow overpowered her, its fiery shafts blinded her; and covering her eyes, she stumbled below, whimpering, conscious of a dull ache, a shame, a sullen fear which she could not comprehend. Something hitherto unconquered was vanquished in her heart, so that never afterwards did she move with quite the same feeling of supremacy.