There are a few fishing-boats drawn up upon the beach, and this is all the view.
Young though they are, both Fred Arundel and his foster-sister Toddie must be impressed by the solemnity and beauty of the scene, for they are unusually silent, as hand in hand they come homewards across the soloured sands.
But suddenly they start, and stop and listen.
"Hush, Toddie! Did you hear that cry? What can it be?"
"Only a Tatywake, Fled."
"No, Todd, it was no Kittywake. It was no bird at all Hark! There it is again."
Yes; borne towards the beach on the evening breeze, and falling on their listening ears, comes once again a faint but plaintive cry, that anyone less a child of the ocean than Fred, might well have mistaken for the scream of some sea-bird, a gull, or tern, or skua.
Toddie clung fearfully to Fred now.
"O Fleddie," she cried, "I is so flightened. What is it? Some poor man dlowning out there all by his self. Yun home, Fled, and tell daddy. O Fleddie, yun, yun!"
"No," said Fred boldly. "Whoever it is, must be clinging to the rocks. The tide is rising fast, Todd; but the little cobble is handy, and I'll pull out and see."