Book Two The Woman - Chapter 1 Of Storm And Tempest And of the Coming of Charmian

I was at sea in an open boat. Out of the pitch-black heaven
there rushed a mighty wind, and the pitch-black seas above me
rose high, and ever higher, flecked with hissing white; wherefore
I cast me face downwards in my little boat, that I might not
behold the horror of the waters; and above their ceaseless,
surging thunder there rose a long-drawn cry: "Charmian!"

I stood upon a desolate moor, and the pitiless rain lashed me,
and the fierce wind buffeted me; and, out of the gloom where
frowning earth and heaven met--there rose a long-drawn cry: "Charmian."

I started up in bed, broad awake, and listening; yet the tumult
was all about me still--the hiss and beat of rain, and the sound
of a rushing, mighty wind--a wind that seemed to fill the earth--a
wind that screamed about me, that howled above me, and filled the
woods, near and far, with a deep booming, pierced, now and then,
by the splintering crash of snapping bough or falling tree. And
yet, somewhere in this frightful pandemonium of sound, blended in
with it, yet not of it, it seemed to me that the cry still faintly
echoed: "Charmian."

So appalling was all this to my newly-awakened senses, that I
remained, for a time, staring into the darkness as one dazed.
Presently, however, I rose, and, donning some clothes, mended the
fire which still smouldered upon the hearth, and, having filled
and lighted my pipe, sat down to listen to the awful voices of
the storm.