“Bompard was swallowed up there. You would have been swallowed up too; you were led to find me for both our sakes. Then, to-day, I could have gone no further only for you, and you remember how we thought of going back? This ledge was here waiting for us. It tells us we have to go on and be brave and everything will come right.”

“Well, maybe, you aren’t far wrong,” replied the other, “we’ve scraped through so far and maybe we’ll scrape through to the end. My main wish is to have a plank under foot again, there ain’t no give and take in land, I’m never surefooted on land, there’s no lift in it. I reckon I’m like one of them sea chickens not used to solid stuff underfoot. D’you know what one of them gulls does first thing he lands on board a ship by chance?”

“No.”

“He gets sick as a dog.”

The cliff had an echo which, when it was not answering some loud boost of the sea managed to return words, and between the smack of two waves the girl heard it remark something about a dog. But the echo of the cliff soon had its mouth too full to hold words. The sea now nearly at full flood was bringing big waves along with it. In the gloom they could see the racing grey ghosts, and here, on account of the curve, there was little rhythm in the sound of it that came like the continuous thunder of big drums. At their feet, like the licking vicious tongue of the roaring monster, came the continuous gash-gash of waves washing up and falling back.

The girl sat with the blanket around her leaning close up against the man. She felt as a person feels standing before the cage of a tiger uncertain as to the strength of the bars, sometimes a puff of wind brought a touch of spray on her face, whilst the continuous muffled thunder of the coast leagues seemed like the bastions of the whole world at war with the sea.

“There’s no call to be afraid,” said Raft. He seemed, by some special faculty, to be able to divine her feelings.

“I’m not exactly afraid,” she replied. “It’s just that everything seems so big—and those cliffs, now, even when they are hidden, they make one know they are there, they seem wicked and alive, yet not able to move.”

“You’ve hit it,” said he, “they’re for all the world as if they were looking at a chap. It’s a rotten coast, but it’s near high water now and the tide will soon be drawing out.”

This cheered her.