Oh, verdure of dark olive
foliage, offered suddenly to fainting eyes, as if by some winged
patriarchal herald of wrath relenting--solitary Arab's tent, rising
with saintly signals of peace, in the dreadful desert, must Kate indeed
die even yet, whilst she sees but cannot reach you? Outpost on the
frontier of man's dominions, standing within life, but looking out upon
everlasting death, wilt thou hold up the anguish of thy mocking
invitation, only to betray? Never, perhaps, in this world was the line
so exquisitely grazed, that parts salvation and ruin. As the dove to
her dove-cot from the swooping hawk--as the Christian pinnace to
Christian batteries, from the bloody Mahometan corsair, so flew--so
tried to fly towards the anchoring thickets, that, alas! could not
weigh their anchors and make sail to meet her--the poor exhausted Kate
from the vengeance of pursuing frost.
And she reached them; staggering, fainting, reeling, she entered
beneath the canopy of umbrageous trees. But, as oftentimes, the Hebrew
fugitive to a city of refuge, flying for his life before the avenger of
blood, was pressed so hotly that, on entering the archway of what
seemed to _him_ the heavenly city-gate, as he kneeled in deep
thankfulness to kiss its holy merciful shadow, he could not rise again,
but sank instantly with infant weakness into sleep--sometimes to wake
no more; so sank, so collapsed upon the ground, without power to choose
her couch, and with little prospect of ever rising again to her feet,
the martial nun.
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