THE FOOTPRINT IN THE SAND. 209

went up to a rising ground to look further. I went up the shore
and down the shore; but it was all one, I could see no other im-
pression but that one. I went to it again to see if there were any
more, and to observe if it might not be my fancy; but there was
no room for that, for there was exactly the very print of a foot,
toes, heel, and every part of a foot ;—how it came thither I knew
not, nor could in the least imagine. But after innumerable flutter-
ing thoughts, like a man perfectly confused and out of myself, I
came home to my fortification, not feeling, as we say, the ground
I went on, but terrified to the last degree, looking behind me at
every two or three steps, mistaking every bush and tree, and
fancying every stump at a distance to be a man. Nor is it pos-
sible to describe how many various shapes affrighted imagination
represented things to me in; how many wild ideas were found
every moment in my fancy, and what strange unaccountable
whimsies came into my thoughts by the way.

When I came to my castle, for so I think I called it ever after
this, I fled into it like one pursued. Whether I went over by the
ladder at first contrived, or went in at the hole in the rock which
I called a door, I cannot remember; no, nor could I remember the
next morning; for never frighted hare fled to cover, or fox to
earth, with more terror of mind than I to this retreat.

I slept none that night. The further I was from the occasion
of my fright the greater my apprehensions were, which is some-
thing contrary to the nature of such things, and especially to the
usual practice of all creatures in fear. But I was so embarrassed
with my own frightful ideas of the thing, that I formed nothing
but dismal imaginations to myself, even though I was now a great
way off it. Sometimes I fancied it must be the devil; and
reason joined in with me upon this supposition. For how should
any other thing in human shape come into the place? Where
was the vessel that brought them? What marks were there of
any other footsteps? And how was it possible a man should come
there? But, then, to think that Satan should take human shape
upon him in such a place, where there could be no manner of
occasion for it but to leave the print of his foot behind him, and
that even for no purpose, too, for he could not be sure 1 should