A thought had
struck her all at once, and this thought prompted her immediately to
turn round. Perhaps it was in some blind yearning after the only
memorials of life in this frightful region, that she fixed her eye upon
a point of hilly ground by which she identified the spot near which the
three corpses were lying. The silence seemed deeper than ever. Neither
was there any phantom memorial of life for the eye or for the ear, nor
wing of bird, nor echo, nor green leaf, nor creeping thing, that moved
or stirred, upon the soundless waste. Oh, what a relief to this burthen
of silence would be a human groan! Here seemed a motive for still
darker despair. And yet, at that very moment, a pulse of joy began to
thaw the ice at her heart. It struck her, as she reviewed the ground,
that undoubtedly it had been for some time slowly descending. Her
senses were much dulled by suffering; but this thought it was,
suggested by a sudden apprehension of a continued descending movement,
which had caused her to turn round. Sight had confirmed the suggestion
first derived from her own steps. The distance attained was now
sufficient to establish the tendency. Oh, yes, yes, to a certainty she
had been descending for some time. Frightful was the spasm of joy which
whispered that the worst was over.
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