Gliding over the lake, the calm surface like a mirror, when the clouds parted and the full light of the moon shone down—as I was so silently escaping, my oars wrapped, in the night—I was caught there in the silvery beams. Oh darkness, my protector, where did you go? So I lay down, flat and low, in that so little coffin of a boat, praying no eye would see, or if seeing, would not perceive. Still drifting toward my goal, I gazed up into the light which would discover me. The stars glimmered behind the curling whisps of clouds, and the great circle of the moon was rainbowed in the thinning fog.
Desperate as I was, fearing, wondering, hoping, all the circumstances of my flight seemed like dreams then under the eternal. I was struck dumb, a muteness borne deep into my soul. A passivity like sleep was mine upon the lake.
The moon gives her name to lunatics, but there can be a wisdom in madness. They say when I reached the far shore that morning, I was quite mad. They blamed the tortures of my enemies. They cited the deprivation of the prisoners. Such things I bore and was prepared against. I had expected, depended upon the darkness; but that there was a light in the darkness, I was not ready. The darkness could not comprehend it.
Tale Told 