1

I was rid of feeling, because I had been killed, but perception and thought were in my unhappy soul. The dawn widened, and I saw the desolate houses that crowded the marge of the river, and their dead windows peered into my dead eyes, windows with bales behind them instead of human souls. I grew so weary looking at these forlorn things that I wanted to cry out, but could not, because I was dead. Then I knew, as I had never known before, that for all the years that herd of desolate houses had wanted to cry out too, but, being dead, were dumb. And I knew then that it had yet been well with the forgotten drifting things if they had wept, but they were eyeless and without life. And I, too, tried to weep, but there were no tears in my dead eyes. –Lord Dunsany

The aged mariner may proclaim, “And on the first winter breaker…of Grand Isle’s coldest winter, Pierre Santiny plunged into the sea and was seen no more.”
Then, the teller of the tale may pause with haunting eyes as the fires crack in the bonfire, the sea roars, and the wind howls with possibly an ancient chime. With a whispering voice on the third crash of a wave they may even say, “But none on the island will ever say he died.”–JL

A legend haunts the town of Grand Isle. Aged mariners proclaim by roaring bonfires along the coast, “And on the first winter breaker…of Grand Isle’s coldest winter, Pierre Santiny plunged into the sea and was seen no more.”
Then, the teller of the tale may pause with haunting eyes as the fires crack in the bonfire, the sea roars, and the wind howls with possibly an ancient chime. With a whispering voice on the third crash of a wave they may even say, “But none on the island will ever say he died.”
Will Marty Santiny—son of Pierre Santiny, discover what really happened to his father? Or will the town continue to fear the legend of “The Mariner of Caminada Pass”?

It snatched beyond his reach at one fell swoop all that he most loved and enjoyed, destroying a thousand dreams, and painting the future a dull drab colour without hope. He was an idealist at heart, hating the sordid routine of the life he led as a business underling. His dreams were of the open air, of mountains, forests, and great plains, of the sea, and of the lonely
places of the world.