Darby grinned again, and looked up to see Gheena cast off her coat and stand in close-fitting stockingette.
"It is much too cold for a bathe," he said paternally.
Gheena kicked off her shoes, and remarked that cold water was always warmer when it wasn't really warm, as she poised for a dive.
The sea poured in just there into a deep narrow pool, hedged over about twenty yards down by a narrow belt of rocks. Beyond that was another pool, a small one, and there the sea seemed to dive under a ledge, called the Bridge, where it gurgled and sucked and muttered restlessly, until it showed again in a basin of great depth, washed into at low tide by the waves and covered at high.
Gheena poised, balanced, disappeared. The water surged and parted, throwing up protesting sprays and rippled as she shot up. Then she was gone again out of sight.
"Always she does be doin' that same," said Phil, "undther the rock no less, like a merrymaid."
Darby ran to the Bridge. A shadow showed in the green depths swimming easily under water; next moment Gheena's merry face shot up.
"I call it my diving-bell." She trod water easily.
"It's hang dangerous going under like that; if there was a devil-fish down there."
"Or a shark," suggested Gheena, holding on to the seaweed-hung ledge.