Daunt had sprung to her side and was shouting something. But the words were indistinguishable; she shook her head and went on stubbornly, clinging to the chain, a whirl of blown garments. She felt him grasp her arm.
"Go back!" she shrieked. "It's—bad—luck!"
As he released her there came a second's menacing lull, and in it she sprang down the steps and ran swiftly out along the pathway. He was after her in an instant, overtaking her on a frail board trestle that spanned a pool, where the cliff was perpendicular. Here the wind, shaggy with spume, hurled them together. Daunt threw an arm about her, clinging with the other hand to the wooden railing. Her hair was a reddish swirl across his shoulder and her breath, panting against his throat, ridged his skin with a creeping delight. The rocks beneath them, through whose fissures tongues of water ran screaming, was the color of raspberries and tawny with seaweed. There was only a weird, yellow half-light, through which the gale howled and scuffled, like dragons fighting. A slather of wave licked the palsied framework.
He bent and shouted into her ear. All she caught was: "Must—cave—next lull—"
She nodded her head and her lips smiled at him through the confused obscurity. A thrill swept her like silver rain. Pulse on pulse, an emotion like fire and snow in one thrilled and chilled her. She closed her eyes with a wild longing that the wind might last for ever, that that moment, like the ecstasy of an opium dream, might draw itself out to infinite length. Slowly she felt the breath of the tempest ebb about them, then suddenly felt herself lifted from her feet, and her eyes opened into Daunt's. Her cheek lay against his breast, as it had done in that short moment in the Embassy garden. She could feel his heart bound under the rough tweed. Once more the wind caught them, but he staggered through it, and into the high, rock entrance of the cave.
Inside its dripping rim the sudden cessation of the wind seemed almost uncanny, and the boom of the surf was a dull thunderous roar. He set her on her feet on the damp rock and laughed wildly.
"Do you realize," she said, "that we have transgressed the most sacred tenet of Ben-ten by coming here together? We are doomed to misunderstanding!"
"Now that I recollect, that applies only to lovers," he answered. "Then we—"
"Are quite safe," she quickly finished for him. "Come, I want to see the shrine. We must find a candle."
He peered into the gloomy depths. "I think I see some burning," he said. "We will explore."