On his right cathedral cliffs blocked out the light. Mighty-towering, they made a white and awful gloom between him and heaven. The shadow of them darkened his heart. Crouching fly-like there, he cowered as he peered up at them. They were terrible: so stern, so white, so inexorable. Had he wronged them?—They seemed to stand over him in fearful and affronted majesty. Yet with the awe there came a pride, the pride of possession. They were his, these tremendous battlements; they were England's. With what a high and massive steadfastness they challenged France! Surely they knew themselves impregnable.
Beneath him the sea, a vast plain of silver-blue, merged in a sky white as diamonds. The one drifted, the other was still; the one sparkled, the other shone: for the rest there was no distinction, no dividing line. Each ran into the other; and all was splendid with light and life.
Below, those dark dead men still scavenged on the edge of the tide. He could have dropped a pebble on them. Dingy Joe's whine floated up to him….
"This cove's rings won't come off."
"Ain't you got a knife, then?" growled the brutal Toadie— "talks like a Miss."
"Say! look at this chap's lady-bird."
Bandy Dick held something aloft.
"He won't want no lady-bird no more. She'll ave to get another fancy-man."
Followed filthiest jests on women … love…. Such love!
Pah!—Were they men?—The beasts were purer.