« Fierce and sullen was the countenance of Styrbiorn, yet quiet, as of a fierce beast charmed with music, as he watched that dance of the rolling surges sweeping and pausing and falling and rising again : Ran's eternal children leading their round as if in sad ceremonial observance of some divinity hidden apart, removed form all knowledge or communion of human kind ; and listened to the swelling roar of the breaker as it rod on, the thud and thunder of its fall, and the grinding hiss of the shingle in the back-wash, as if wrath, which is older than the world and older than the Gods, drew in its breath once again, pondering some greater mischief. »