How
did it run?
He who lifts Wave-Flame on high
In love shall live and in battle die.
Storm-tossed o'er wide seas shall roam
And in strange lands shall make his home.
Conquering, conquered shall he be
And far away shall sleep with me.
It fitted well, though of the love I had known little and that most
unhappy, and the battle in which I must die was one with water. Also,
I had conquered nothing who myself was conquered by Fate. In short, the
thing could be read two ways, like all prophecies, and only one line of
it was true beyond a doubt--namely, that Wave-Flame and I should sleep
together.
Awhile later the lightning shone awesomely, like to the swords of a
whole army of destroying angels, so that the sky became alive with fire.
In its light for an instant I saw ahead of us great breakers, and beyond
them what looked like a dark mass of land. Now we were in them, for
the first of those hungry, curling waves got a hold of the _balsa_ and
tossed it up dizzily, then flung it down into a deep valley of water.
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