"The St. Helena of old had been as a Paradise," avers Euphrenia. "The Orange and Lemon-Groves, the Coffee-Fields,—
"Gone before your Time, Euphie."
"Does that mean I am forbidden to mourn them? They are mine as much as anyone's, to mourn."
"I'd be last to lay any sort of claim," says the Revd, "— whilst the Astronomers were sailing there from the Cape, I was journeying on, quite the other way, to India, and then past India— St. Helena was a part of the Tale that I miss'd, and along with it the Reverend Dr. Maskelyne, who has continued, even unto our Day, as Astronomer Royal, publishing his Almanack and doing his bit for global Trade."
"Something wrong with that, Wicks?" inquires Mr. LeSpark.
"Only insofar as it is global, and not Celestial," replies the Revd, with a holy Smirk master'd in his first week of Curacy.
The Merchant of Purposeful Explosion throws an arm across his Brow. "Your Halo blinds me, Sir. Aye, most Italian,— Joy of it, I'm sure."
"More of this Brandy ought to dim it some." Genial Uncle Lomax, grinning mischievously at his older Brother, pours the Revd another Beaker-ful. From outside, frozen Rain sweeps briefly yet pointedly at the glossy black Window-Panes.
"Then how are we ever to know what happen'd among the three of 'm upon that little-known Island?" Uncle Ives a bit smug, ev'ryone thinks.
"Well, let us see. Maskelyne was there the better part of a Year,— aware, from early on, that he could not obtain the Observations he wanted, owing to a defective Plumb-line suspension on the Sector, yet there, enisl'd, remaining,— twenty-nine years old, first time he's been away from home, and he's facing months in what proves to be,— those whose bed-time is nigh, stop your Ears,— an infamous Port of Call, quite alone in the mid-Atlantic, a Town left to shift as it may, dedicated to nought but the pleasures of Sailors,— which is to say, ev'ry species of Misbehavior, speakable and not."
"Tides and Lunars cannot have provided the Reverend Maskleyne full occupation,— one is understandably curious as to what else may've befallen him."
"Something must have," the Revd Cherrycoke agrees, "— else he should have emerg'd mad as all sooner or later go, upon that Island."
"An attack of Reason," suggests Mr. LeSpark.
"What's the Mystery?" Ethelmer shrugs. "Didn't Days take twenty-four Hours to pass, as they do now?"
Brae peers thro' the candle-light. "Why Coz, how interesting."
The idea, in making Port at St. Helena, is to keep to windward, get South-east of the Island, and let the Trade Winds carry you to the coast,— which you then follow, generally northward, till you come 'round to the lee side, and on into the harbor of James's Town,— where despite appearances of Shelter, the oceanic Waves continue to beat with?out ceasing, the Clamor wind-borne, up across the Lines and the Parade, all being reduced to Geometry and optical Illusion, even what is waiting there all around, what is never to be nam'd directly.
Once ashore, the Astronomers hear the Ocean everywhere, no Wall thick, nor Mind compos'd, nor Valley remote enough to lose it. It shakes the Ground and traverses the Boot-soles of the Watch, high in the ravines.The floorboards of Taverns register its rhythmick Blows, as they have the Years of Thumps from the swinging boots of Seamen whose destinies were sometimes to include Homicide, as if keeping Faith with that same Brutal Pulse, waiting upon a Moment, needing but the single sighting,— sworn to, vanish'd,— the terrible Authorization.
Tho' the sun nightly does set below the Island's stark horizon, what Mason sees, from his first Nightfall there, is Darkness, rising up out of the sea, where all the carelessly bright day it has lain, as in a state of slum?ber. . .whilst at dawn, that same Darkness, almost palpably aware of his Regard, appears to withdraw, consciously, to a certain depth below the Atlantick Surface. In the Astrology of this island, the Sun must be reck?oned of less importance than Darkness incorporated as some integral, anti-luminary object, with its own motions, positions, and aspects,— Black Sheep of the family of Planets, neither to be sacrificed to Hades nor spoken of by Name....
Sirius, which Maskelyne remains here to observe, is the Island's Zenith-Star, as is Gamma Draconis for Greenwich. (Englishmen are born under the Dragon, St. Helenians under the Dog. At Bencoolen Mason and Dixon would have been under inconstant Mira, in the Whale. These signs are the Apocrypha of Astrology.) Ev'ry Midnight the baleful thing is there, crossing directly overhead,— the Yellow Dog. There inverted among the Wires, all but flowing. Treacly, as you'd say,— would even a Portsmouth Poll wear such a vivid, unhealthy shade of Yellow?
A very small town clings to the edge of an interior that must be reck?oned part of the Other World. No change here is gradual,— events arrive suddenly. All distances are vast. The Wind, brutal and pure, is there for its own reasons, and human life, any life, counts for close to nought. The Town has begun to climb into the Ravine behind it, and thus, averaged overall, to tilt toward the sea. After Rain-Storms, the water rushes down?hill, in Eagres and Riffles and Cataracts, thro' the town, rooftop to rooftop, in and out of Windows, leaving behind a shiv'ring Dog from uphill, taking away the Coffee Pot, till leaving it in its turn somewhere else, for a Foot-Stool,— thus bartering its way out to sea. The Horizon has little use for lengthy sunsets. Creatures of the Ocean depths approach the shore-line, as near as the little Coves where the water abruptly becomes Lavender and Aquamarine, remaining to observe, deliberate in their movements, without fear.
For years, travelers have reported that the further up into the country one climbs, the more the sea appears to lie above the Island,— as if sus?pended, and kept from falling fatally upon it, thro' the operations of Mys-terion impenetrable on the part of a Guardian.... As if in Payments
 credited against the Deluge, upon no sure Basis of Prediction, the great Sea-Rollers will rise, and come against the Island,— reaching higher than the Town with the Jacobite Name, tho' perhaps not quite to the ridgeline above it. For anyone deluded enough to remain down at sea-level, there must come a moment when he finds himself looking upward at the Crests approaching. The Public Trees quite small in Outline below them. The Cannon, the Bastions, of no Avail. Did he choose, more pru?dently, to escape to the Heights, he might, from above, squinting into spray whose odor and taste are the life of the sea, behold a Company of Giant rob'd Beings, risen incalculably far away over the Horizon, bound this way upon matters forever unexplain'd, moving blind and remorse?less across the Sea, as if the Island did not exist.
Not as spectacular, older residents declare, as the Rollers of '50. Then, it seem'd, 'twas the Triumph of a Sea gone mad, and the Island must be lost— Being part of a general Exodus to high ground, one may not pause for too long to gaze and reflect upon the fastnesses of empty water-plain, the Sun-glare through the salt Mists after the sleepless climb thro' the Dark,— the only Choices within one's Control, those between Persistence and Surrender. Within their first week upon the Island, all visitors have this Dream.
Out upon Munden's Point stand a pair of Gallows, simplified to Pen-strokes in the glare of this Ocean sky. A Visitor may lounge in the Evening upon the Platform behind the Lines, and, as a Visitor to London might gaze at St. Paul's, regard these more sinister forms in the failing North Light,— perhaps being led to meditate upon Punish?ment,— or upon Commerce...for Commerce without Slavery is un?thinkable, whilst Slavery must ever include, as an essential Term, the Gallows,— Slavery without the Gallows being as hollow and Waste a Proceeding, as a Crusade without the Cross. Down at the end of the great Ravine that runs up-country from the sea, beneath the cliffs, along the Batteries, in the evenings, Islanders looking to catch the breeze will nightly promenade. If one ignores the guns darkly shining and the arm'd Sentries, the Island might be fancied an East Indiaman of uncertain size, and these crepuscular parades to and fro, a Passen?gers' turn upon her Weather-decks,— though at closer inspection each Phiz might suggest less a Traveler's Curiosity, than some long-standing
 acquaintance with the glum, even among the women who appear, each Sunset.
Besides those resident here for purposes of Nautickal Amusement, the Birds of passage thro' St. Helena make up a mix'd flock,— Convicts being transported to the South Seas for unladylike crimes in England, with St. Helena one of the steps in their Purgatory,— young Wives on their way out to India to join husbands in the Army and Navy, a-tremble with tales, haunting the Day like a shadow from just beneath the Horizon ahead, of the Black Hole of Calcutta,— and Company Perpetuals, headed out, headed home, such shuttles upon the loom of Trade as Mrs. Rollright, late of Portland, who keeps opium in her patch-box and com?mutes frequently enough upon the India run to've had four duels fought over her already, though she has yet to see her twenties out. Almost to a woman, they confess to strange and inexpressible Feelings when the ship makes landfall,— the desolate line of peaks, the oceanic sunlight,— coming about to fetch the road, losing the Trade-Wind at Sugar-Loaf Point, hugging the shore and playing the eddies, the identickal Routine, 'twas 0 G-d are we here again,— whilst to First-Timers another Planet, somehow accessible from this.
"There's one a-sop with the Dew," Dixon remarks, "- - in the Claret-color'd Velvet there, with the Chinese Shawl, and the Kid Boots...? She seems to recollect thee, for fair."
"Tyburn Charlie! well prick me with a Busk-Pin and tell me 'twas all a Dream. 'Tis I,— little Florinda! Yes, you do remember,— but last Year,— " and she sings, in a pleasant Alto,
 
'Twas the Fifth Day of May, in The Year of our Lord, Seven--Teen hundred sixty and Zero, That the Brave Lord Ferrers Ascended the Steps, of The Scaffold, as bold as a Hero...
Mason amiably joining in, they continue,
'I am ready,' said he, 'If you'll
Quote me your Fee,'— to the
Cruel Hangman's Eye sprang a Tear-oh,—
'Of your silver-trimm'd Coat,
I'll admit I made note,
But must no longer claim it, oh dear, oh!'
[Refrain]
'0, my, 0 Dear 0!
You must think I've the morals of Nero!
Be it dangle 'em high, or strangle 'em low,
Hangmen have Feelings, or didn't ye know?'
The year after Rebekah's death was treacherous ground for Mason, who was as apt to cross impulsively by Ferry into the Bosom of Wap-ping, and another night of joyless low debauchery, as to attend Routs in Chelsea, where nothing was available betwixt Eye-Flirtation, and the Pox. In lower-situated imitations of th............