“Jonathan, I know just where high-tide mark is, and we’re fully twelve inches above it.”
Silence.
“Aren’t we?”
“Oh, was that a question?” murmured Jonathan. “Why, yes, I think we are at least that.”
“Of course, there are extra high tides sometimes.”
Silence.
“Jonathan, do you know when they come?”
“Not exactly.”
“Well, I don’t care. I love it, anyway. Only it seems so much bigger and colder at night, the water does.”
At last I drowsed, waking now and then to raise my head and just glance down at those waves—they certainly sounded as if they were lapping the sand close by my ear. No, there they were, quite within bounds, fully twenty feet away from my toes. Of course it was all right. I slept again, and dreamed that the tide rose and rose; the waves ran merrily up the beach, ran up on both sides of us, closed in behind us. We were lying on a little sand island, and the waves nibbled at its edges—nibbled and nibbled and nibbled—the island was being nibbled up. This would never do! We must move! And I woke. Ripple, ripple, swash! ripple, ripple, swash! went the unconscious waves. As I raised my head I saw the pale beach stretching off under the moon-washed mists of middle night. Reassured, I sank back, and when I waked again the big sun was well above the rim of the waters and all the little waves were dancing [pg 208] and the wet curves of the beach were gleaming in the new day.