“Lord, yes,” replied he, “the cliffs will give us a lead, it’ll be slow going but we’ll do it all right, it’s not more than six miles or so to the break from the point there.”
“When can we start?”
Raft listened to the water below, it was breaking now against the near rocks but not yet against the cliff base.
“In another three hours or maybe a bit more,” said he.
An hour later, as though the Fog spirit had been listening and watching, and as though it despaired of its attack on the heart of the prisoners, the smother began to thin; by the time the tide reluctantly began to free them it had broken up and patches of the blessed blue sky shewed overhead.
By the time they reached the point and had a view of the great cliff break-down that would give them release it was fine weather, with a gently heaving sea breaking in beneath a sky of summer.
It was as though their troubles were ended. At noon they reached the great break-down and a new form of country.
Stretching inland almost to the foothills lay a broad valley, boulder strewn, and looking like the bed of some vanished river. Before them to the west the ground rose from the valley, gently, unbroken, desolate, like nothing so much as the desolate country that borders the Riff coast of Morocco. But it was ease itself compared to the tumble of rocks around and beyond the Lizard Point.
Down the middle of the valley came a little wimpling rivulet like the remains of the river that had once been. They drank from it and rested and had some food, then they started with light hearts, taking the easy ascent to the high ground, treading a moss dark and springy like the moss that covers the old lava beds of Iceland.
“Look!” said the girl.